Soft robotics with e-skin made of flexible materials
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh believe that the technique might lead to further improvements in soft robotics by enabling things to accurately sense their motions in the most sensitive surroundings.
A participant in the study, which appeared in the journal Nature Machine Intelligence, was that University of Hong Kong, too. Soft robots with e-skin, which scientists develop using flexible materials rather than metal or hard plastics.
It might be utilised for a range of activities, including surgical instruments, prosthetic limbs, and devices that explore dangerous regions while staying very flexible.
Without e-skin, soft robots find it difficult to understand their own motion, form and interactions with their surroundings. The development of the sensory systems needed for robots to carry our precise tasks an d safely interact with people is severely hampered as a result.
According to Study Finds, the research team is the first to develop a method that enables soft robots incredibly accurate, real-time sensing capabilities.
Researchers have created a flexible e-skin that is just one millimetre thick, composed of a thin layer of silicone, and embedded with wires and sensitive detectors.
E-skin and AI make robots sense their motions in physical self-awareness
Using the e-skin and artificial intelligence, scientists were able to give soft robots the capacity to instantly sense their motions and deformations with millimetre precision in three dimensions, in real-time.
By mounting this e-skin to a flexible robot arm, the researchers put it to the test and found that the technology was capable of sensing a wide range of complex bending, stretching, and twisting movements through, stretching, and twisting movements through the whole device.
This new technology gives robotic machines perceptual senses that are comparable to those of humans and other animals. The sensing skills of soft robots have advanced significantly as a result of this new degree of physical self-awareness, according to Dr. Ynujie Yang from the School of Engineering at the University of Edinburgh.
Dr. Francesco Girgio-Serchi, the study’s co leader and an engineering professor at the same School stated that by enabling robots to see their own form and motion, this technology can aid in developing self-awareness.
Will our chances of giving robots a real sense of touch improve? Due to stretchable e-skin, soft robots new posses a level of physical self-awareness that is equivalent to that of humans and other animals.
Scientists are working on developing electronic skin in the hopes that it could facilitate surgical procedures and potentially be useful for those with mobility disorders.
Source: University of Edinburgh
