It’s hard for engineers recreate the senses that humans have in robots. Still, there has been a long time trying to make robots have a sense of touch, and it seems that robots made of soft materials could.
A very complex job
For many years quite a few groups of engineers have tried to replicate the human sense of touch in robots, using state-of-the-art technology and soft materials instead of hard.
Yes you can get u doa very similar robotic hand to a human, but not like this replicate the sense of touch in them. Achieving this became a very difficult task.
However, a group of researchers from the Beihang University in Beijing, China, has created a technique capable of making robotic fingers made with soft materials can detect this sense.
It is all thanks to a technique call proprioception. This is what makes humans or even many animals able to feel the position and movement in your fingers when they touch any surface.
The researchers realized that any artificial sensor feels much more than human beings, so deploying these sensors in robotic hands would be a key to investigate the sense of touch in robots.
A multi-part system
The system the researchers created to create the sense of touch in a robot counts with the following elements: through a system that had a linear actuator, a sensor that detects voltage, a cable and a prototype robot finger.
Regarding its operation, the cable connects the finger to the actuator and the tension sensor is installed in the middle of the wire. This way, when the actuator is activated, it will cause the cable to move and the finger moves with more or less tension. In this way, the finger can detect how is the surface that is touching, if it is smoother, rougher, if it is dry or wet, etc.
The experiments have been an absolute success since it has been achieved almost 100% correct during the tests. This is an unprecedented achievement in creating a sense of touch in robots.
In addition, a way to implement this sensory sense in robotic hands that already exist and they don’t have this system.
The developer team has already announced that when they further develop their system will collaborate with a nanotechnology laboratory to develop these cheaper touch sensors.