Tag: artificial skin

Impact Lab > artificial skin
Biotech, brain-computer interfaces, Engineering, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

Scientists inspired by Star Wars develop artificial skin capable of recreating sense of touch

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A researcher at the NUS demonstrates the self-healing abilities of an artificial, transparent skin

ACES, or Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, comprises up to 100 small sensors to replicate a sense of feeling.

  • Researchers say it can process information faster than the nervous system
  • The skin is able to recognise 20 to 30 different textures
  • The technology is still in the experimental stage

Singapore researchers have developed “electronic skin” capable of recreating a sense of touch, an innovation they hope will allow people with prosthetic limbs to detect objects, as well as feel texture, or even temperature and pain.

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Robotics, Robots, Science & Technology News

The artificial skin that allows robots to feel

This artificial skin lets robots ‘feel’ like humans can

London (CNN Business)Robots are one step closer to gaining a human sense that has so far eluded them: Touch.

Scientists last month unveiled an artificial skin that enables robots to feel and respond to physical contact, a skill that will be needed as they come in increasingly close contact with people.

In 2017, manufacturers worldwide used roughly 85 industrial robots per 10,000 employees, according to a report by the International Federation of Robotics. The same report predicts the global supply of industrial robots to grow 14% per year until 2021.

But if robots end up working more closely with their fleshy colleagues, one concern is how they will interact safely.

“Currently, robots do not have any sense of touch,” Professor Gordon Cheng, who developed the special skin with his team at the Technical University of Munich, tells CNN Business.

Continue reading… “The artificial skin that allows robots to feel”

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Augmented Reality, brain-computer interfaces, cutting edge, Science & Technology News

Artificial skin could help rehabilitation and enhance virtual reality

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Artificial skin could help rehabilitation and enhance virtual reality

EPFL scientists have developed a soft artificial skin that provides haptic feedback and—thanks to a sophisticated self-sensing mechanism—has the potential to instantaneously adapt to a wearer’s movements. Applications for the new technology range from medical rehabilitation to virtual reality. Artificial skin could help rehabilitation and enhance virtual reality.

Just like our senses of hearing and vision, our sense of touch plays an important role in how we perceive and interact with the world around us. And technology capable of replicating our sense of touch—also known as haptic feedback—can greatly enhance human-computer and human-robot interfaces for applications such as medical rehabilitation and virtual reality.

Scientists at EPFL’s Reconfigurable Robotics Lab (RRL), headed by Jamie Paik, and Laboratory for Soft Bioelectronic Interfaces (LSBI), headed by Stéphanie Lacour at the School of Engineering, have teamed up to develop a soft, flexible artificial skin made of silicone and electrodes. Both labs are part of the NCCR Robotics program.

The skin’s system of soft sensors and actuators enable the artificial skin to conform to the exact shape of a wearer’s wrist, for example, and provide haptic feedback in the form of pressure and vibration. Strain sensors continuously measure the skin’s deformation so that the haptic feedback can be adjusted in real time to produce a sense of touch that’s as realistic as possible. The scientists’ work has just been published in Soft Robotics.

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Great New Product, Healthcare, Medical Breakthrough, Science & Technology News

This spray-on nanofiber ‘skin’ may revolutionize burn and wound care

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Hey Shaped like a gun, Nanomedic’s SpinCare device emits a web of electrospun polymer nanofabric that stays put for weeks—no dressing changes required.

Imagine if bandaging looked a little more like, well, a water gun?

Israeli startup Nanomedic Technologies Ltd., a subsidiary of medical device company Nicast, has invented a new mechanical contraption to treat burns, wounds, and surgical injuries by mimicking human tissue. Shaped like a children’s toy, the lightweight SpinCare emits a proprietary nanofiber “second skin” that completely covers the area that needs to heal.

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3D Printer, cutting edge, Engineering, Future, Science & Technology News

MIT’s Color-changing Robot ‘skin’ Was Inspired by the Golden Tortoise Beetle

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have created a 3D-printed robot “skin” capable of changing color according to the physical stimuli that it receives. The work was inspired by the so-called “goldbug,” a golden tortoise beetle, which changes color in the wild.

“I was googling online about two and a half years ago, looking for creatures that change their color, and found out about this beetle,” project leader, Subramanian Sundaram, an MIT graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, told Digital Trends. “The golden tortoise beetle is incredibly interesting. One of the things it does is that, when it’s disturbed or scared, it drains out the fluid in its shell which is normally golden in color, but becomes a reddish-brown. I was interested by the idea that this beetle was able to respond to mechanical disturbances by changing the color and transparency of its outer shell. I thought we might be able to replicate that.”

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New Inventions, Robots, Science & Technology News

New Pressure-Sensitive Electronic Skin Will Give Robots the Sense of Touch

robot sense of touch

Touch was thought to be the most difficult sense to replicate.

Robotics has made tremendous strides in replicating the senses of sight and sound, but smell and taste are still lagging behind, and touch was thought to be the most difficult of them all…until new pressure-sensitive electronic skin came along.

 

Continue reading… “New Pressure-Sensitive Electronic Skin Will Give Robots the Sense of Touch”

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