{"id":19969,"date":"2019-08-21T09:34:53","date_gmt":"2019-08-21T09:34:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/?p=19969"},"modified":"2019-08-21T09:34:53","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T09:34:53","slug":"improved-electronic-skin-designed-for-robots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/strammer.com\/en\/improved-electronic-skin-designed-for-robots\/","title":{"rendered":"Improved Electronic Skin Designed for Robots"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A Sense of Touch: Electronic Skin for Robots<\/span><\/h1>
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No longer an acute thought of science fiction, electronic skin has become an exciting technological platform for medical enthusiasts. The highly elastic wearable e-skin, made from hydro-allergic bio-tech material, has been developed to monitor patients\u2019 health and progress over a period of time without any added discomfort or stress. Although crude forms of e-skin technology started since the 1980s, the concept of integrating this innovative project with artificial intelligence and robots<\/strong> is very new, and yet, an eventual reality<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Indeed, a new e-skin prototype<\/strong> has been created to allow robots and prosthetics a sense of touch.\u00a0 Developed by a team of researchers<\/strong> at the National University of Singapore<\/strong> (NUS), the robotic e-skin prototype will almost contest to existing human skin models, as it is equipped with a specially made Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin<\/strong> (ACES). In addition, the team claimed that the ultra-responsive prototype was faster than a human\u2019s sensory nervous system<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Medical AI devices, as advanced as they may be, fail to have a true interaction with the human patient. This can pose a problem for patients who rely on prosthetic limbs, for example. However, the NUS team created this new e-skin with that concern in mind.<\/p>\n

Assistant Professor of the Department of Materials, Science and Engineering at NUS, Benjamin Tee<\/strong>, explains further on the idea:<\/i><\/p>\n

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\u201cHumans use our sense of touch to accomplish almost every daily task, such as picking up a cup of coffee or making a handshake. Without it, we will even lose our sense of balance when walking. Similarly, robots need to have a sense of touch in order to interact better with humans, but robots today still cannot feel objects very well.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Using the ACES system, a robot would be able to detect touch up to 1,000 times faster than the regular human sensory system<\/strong>, that is, physical contact could be felt in less than 60 nanoseconds <\/strong>– the fastest ever to be recorded in biotechnology. The system can further detect common functions <\/strong>as well like shapes, hardness or the texture of objects within about 10 milliseconds,<\/strong> which is faster than the blink of an eye.<\/p>\n

With such an extraordinary feat achieved, the NUS team can go further in future projects by developing even more intelligent robots that will be able to perform a range of exceptional tasks from the very basic to more daring operations like disaster recovery.<\/p>\n