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Robots Get Sensitive Link Scientists in Japan have emerged with a design for "electronic skin" as sensitive to touch as our own. "Recognition of tactile information will be very important for future generations of robots," says Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo who developed the skin. A sense of touch would help them to identify objects, carry out delicate tasks and avoid collisions. But while a lot of effort has gone into vision and voice recognition for robots, touch sensitivity is still fairly rudimentary. Our own skin contains a battery of touch receptors that produce nerve signals when pressed. For gentle pressures, the main sensors are tiny bulbs of layered tissue called Meissner's corpuscles. Their behaviour is mimicked in plastics such as polyvinylidene fluoride, which generate an electric field when squeezed and are used to make pressure-sensitive pads and other touch-triggered devices. Someya is confident that his skin could find many applications beyond robotics, for example in sport, security or medicine. A pressure-sensitive carpet on the floor of a house could distinguish family members from strangers just from their footprints, he suggests, or sense if an elderly person had collapsed on it. Tactile mats could monitor the performance of athletes in the gym, while tactile seat coverings might measure the physical condition of car drivers. [ permanent link to this entry ]
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