Flexible 'E-skin' Could Endow Robots with Humanlike Sense o

Lord Zentei · Post by **Lord Zentei** » 2005-08-21 04:05pm

Scientific American wrote:Flexible 'E-skin' Could Endow Robots with Humanlike Sense of Touch

Robots with emotions are a staple of science fiction, and a holy grail for AI researchers. But machines with another kind of feeling--a sense of touch--might be a more attainable goal for the near future. To that end, the results of a new study represent significant progress. Scientists have developed a pliable artificial skin that can sense pressure and temperature.

Last year Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo and colleagues announced that they had developed an electronic artificial skin, or E-skin, that could detect pressure. But their creation lacked the ability to sense heat and was not flexible enough to conform to such three-dimensional surfaces as robot fingers. Now Someya's team has addressed these shortcomings by embedding organic transistor-based circuits that are pressure-sensitive and organic semiconductors that are heat-sensitive in a thin plastic film. The result is a net-shaped matrix that the researchers were able to attach to the surface of an egg and that could simultaneously measure and map both pressure and temperature.

Down the road, E-skin sensitivity may well surpass that of human skin by incorporating sensors for light, humidity, strain and ultrasonic, the scientists note. A report detailing their findings was released online today by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. --Kate Wong

LauraG · Post by **LauraG** » 2005-08-21 08:32pm

This would be very interesting for prosthetics.

darthdavid · Post by **darthdavid** » 2005-08-21 08:35pm

Or realistic sex robots.

LauraG · Post by **LauraG** » 2005-08-21 09:28pm

darthdavid wrote:Or realistic sex robots.

Sure. I guess it depends on which one's more useful to you.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-08-21 10:40pm

Ever notice that nearly every time an advancement in humanoid-robot technology is made, someone makes a reference to sexbots?

Noble Ire · Post by **Noble Ire** » 2005-08-21 10:45pm

wolveraptor wrote:Ever notice that nearly every time an advancement in humanoid-robot technology is made, someone makes a reference to sexbots?

This suprises you?

I'm sure that when tactile-sensing, humanoid robots are fully developed, that will be their very first application when released onto the market.

wolveraptor · Post by **wolveraptor** » 2005-08-21 10:53pm

It wearies me. There are far better uses for these technologies.[/self-righteous Puritan]

Still, I'm willing to be that their first application will be manual labor. Robots, Asimov-ian style, are stronger, better workers than humans.

Unless you're referring to humanoid robots that are indistinguishable from humans, rather than feeling robots with human intellect.