• After years of research, the Japanese has done it again: Researchers Develop Robot That Lets Them Fe
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[img]http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/haptic-soft-touch-1-1401804752244.png[/img] [img]http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/haptic-soft-touch-9-1401829362519.jpg[/img] [img]http://spectrum.ieee.org/img/haptic-soft-touch-7-1401821385926.jpg[/img] [quote] Japanese researchers have developed a haptic device that attaches to a person's hand and can simulate the softness of different materials by producing realistic tactile sensations on individual fingertips. According to the researchers, the device could serve as a training tool, helping medical students become skilled in exams that involve feeling parts of the body with the hands. One particular application, they say, would be teaching students how to palpate breasts when looking for lumps. The researchers, from Gifu University in Japan, call their invention a "multi-fingered haptic interface robot," and they presented it yesterday at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Hong Kong. Haptics technology has been improving over the years, but simulating touch is still a tricky thing. In particular, simulating the softness of objects has proved a big challenge, because our fingertips are very sensitive and produce nuanced sensations that are hard to replicate. Conventional haptic devices convey softness by cleverly constraining the motion of fingers and hands. Typically, you operate such devices while looking at virtual objects on a screen or through VR goggles, and if you poke a soft object, the device will let your fingers move a bit into the object before it starts pulling them back, emulating the elasticity of the material. The Japanese researchers say there's a difference between experiencing a force with your finger and experiencing the sensation of a soft touch. They explain that this sensation is primarily due to cutaneous signals generated when the skin on our fingertips deforms, and this is the phenomenon they wanted to emulate. Their device consists of a five-fingered haptic hand connected to a robot arm [photo, right], a design similar to previous haptic systems. The innovative part of their device is the mechanism that comes into contact with the fingertips. This mechanism uses a thin, flexible sheet of a material known as hyper-gel, which has some properties similar to human flesh. To simulate softness, the sheet of gel is stretched by two tiny rollers with a gap between them, so that a strip of gel is suspended in the air. Your finger rests on this strip. By using a motor and a set of gears to move the rollers, the tension on the strip of gel can be increased or decreased. Increasing the tension (pulling the strip tighter) makes it feel harder under your finger, while decreasing the tension (letting the strip get looser) makes it feel softer [see diagram below]. The researchers say other groups have also developed fingertip haptic systems that can simulate softness, but these systems allow users to "touch" objects of only certain sizes and shapes, and in some cases they had to be calibrated based on physical parameters of each user's fingers. These limitations made them unsuitable for medical training. They add that commercially available artificial body parts, like breast models made of silicone [pictured below, left], are of limited use as well, because if you're teaching students how to locate lumps, for example, you will need many different models of different sizes and with lumps in different places. The advantage of their device is versatility. In a simulation, you can have a virtual human body that you can constantly change to create new challenges for the students.[/quote] [url]http://spectrum.ieee.org/automaton/robotics/medical-robots/researchers-develop-robot-that-lets-them-feel-softness-of-virtual-breasts?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ieeespectrum%2Fautomaton+%28Automaton+-+IEEE+Spectrum%29[/url] Erm, for science?
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This'll have so many other applications, but yes.
Ill fuck a sex robot when it can convince me its not a doll
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;44999007]I wonder if they can exploit this to eventually create cybernetic hands that can function as well as the real thing.[/QUOTE]Probably not. This allows people with hands to feel things that aren't actually there. To give an amputee hands that can feel would be a lot more complicated. Interfacing with nerve endings or the brain directly would be needed, for example.
Well, truth be told, it isn't that hard to locate most breast lumps except for the smallest ones, especially in firmer breasts, but it should be useful enough as a teaching aid. Carefully palpating using the circular method lets you identify lumps easily for the most part, unless you have really insensitive fingers.
[QUOTE=Zonesylvania;44999007]I wonder if they can exploit this to eventually create cybernetic hands that can function as well as the real thing.[/QUOTE] more like the exact opposite, creating gloves for telepresence, so we can have a robot dude shake hands and the guy controlling the robot can feel that handshake
who was the control group to compare how realistic the feeling of breasts are lol
add a new level of depth to VR gaming maybe?
Where do I pre-order?
[QUOTE=absolalone111;44999381]add a new level of depth to VR gaming maybe?[/QUOTE] only if they make robot penisu
Japan has its priorities in order. Step it up, America.
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;44999033]Ill fuck a sex robot when it can convince me its not a doll[/QUOTE] What if you are the doll?
Sex jokes aside, this is incredible. It's one of the next major steps in making VR interesting. Movement aside, gloves that provide realistic feedback and even restriction (grabbing an object); and an immersive screen glued to your face is all you really need.
[QUOTE=Sprockethead;44999033]Ill fuck a sex robot when it can convince me its not a doll[/QUOTE] [media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fvh32fQ8nNI[/media]
I saw "Japanese", "robot", and "virtual breasts" all in the same sentence and assumed the worst. I'm actually pleasantly surprised to see that they're developing the technology for something useful and important like showing students how to check the body for tumors. But we all know what this is eventually and inevitably going to turn into.
Oh lord. Japan will probably make the first sentient robot at this rate. Only for them to be a bloody Waifu bot.
You say that like it's a bad thing, sir.
[QUOTE=SinjinOmega;45000914]Oh lord. Japan will probably make the first sentient robot at this rate. Only for them to be a bloody Waifu bot.[/QUOTE] We can only hope.
[QUOTE=SinjinOmega;45000914]Oh lord. Japan will probably make the first sentient robot at this rate. Only for them to be a bloody Waifu bot.[/QUOTE] I think there's a manga with this exact plot :v:
[QUOTE=Tamschi;45001322]I think there's a manga with this exact plot :v:[/QUOTE] a manga? try a thousand
[QUOTE=absolalone111;44999381]add a new level of depth to VR gaming maybe?[/QUOTE] This + Oculus Rift = next level porn.
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