Liquid-Filled Robot Finger More Sensitive to Touch Than a Human's
23 replies, posted
[QUOTE]Add to the list of things robots now do better than humans: feel. Researchers at the U. of Southern California’s Viterbi School of Engineering have designed a robot finger that can outperform humans in the basic yet complex sensory task of touching. Their robot finger, equipped with a novel tactile sensor technology, is better at identifying and distinguishing between different materials and textures than human beings are.
Like most breakthroughs of this nature, the BioTac sensor (that’s its commercial name) is part hardware ingenuity, part software solution. The finger itself is very much like a human’s. A flexible, spongy skin complete with ridges (like a fingerprint) is stretched over a liquid filling. As it slides over a surface, the skin vibrates in ways that are distinctly tied to the texture of the material it is touching. A hydrophone inside the core of the finger picks up these vibrations and uses them to distinguish between materials.
On the software side, the researchers also strove to mimic the human process for evaluating textures. When humans attempt to identify something by touch, there are a huge number of exploratory movements he or she can choose from. Maybe a person prefers to rub certain kinds of textile materials between two fingers to pick up subtleties of cloth texture, while he or she appraises glassy or metallic surface differently. All this comes from prior experience with these materials or with similar materials.
The researchers recreated this way of discerning between exploratory movements via an algorithm that allows the robot to zero in on the best exploratory movements for appraising any material set in front of it at random. The result: when presented with 117 materials gathered from fabric, stationary, and hardware stores, the robot correctly identified them 95 percent of the time using no sensory input but touch. Only rarely did very similar textures confuse it. Humans simply aren’t that good at distinguishing between highly similar textures.
Of course, humans are discerning in other ways. For instance, humans can actually like or dislike a texture, perhaps finding it abrasive or comforting or warm as well. As such, BioTac sensors might best be used in human prostheses, where the tactile input from the sensor can be combined with other human sensory data as well as the human capacity to evaluate the external world beyond the way it feels. The paper describing this new sensor was published yesterday in the journal Frontiers in Neurorobotics, should any readers care to delve deeper.
[img]http://www.popsci.com/files/imagecache/article_image_large/articles/robot-finger.jpg[/img][/QUOTE]
Source: [url]http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2012-06/new-robot-finger-more-sensitive-touch-human[/url]
:quagmire:
[editline]Ok[/editline]
[QUOTE=sltungle;36408335]The first line of the article bugs me; just because it's more sensitive it doesn't make it 'better'. Imagine you were CONSTANTLY aware of your clothes rubbing against your skin - it'd drive you mad.[/QUOTE]
The brain determines that. Imagine being able to feel every single fiber on a piece of cloth or being able to touch and feel every single hair on your arm
The first line of the article bugs me; just because it's more sensitive it doesn't make it 'better'. Imagine you were CONSTANTLY aware of your clothes rubbing against your skin - it'd drive you mad.
[QUOTE=sltungle;36408335]The first line of the article bugs me; just because it's more sensitive it doesn't make it 'better'. Imagine you were CONSTANTLY aware of your clothes rubbing against your skin - it'd drive you mad.[/QUOTE]
Thank god for sensory adaptation.
[QUOTE=sltungle;36408335]The first line of the article bugs me; just because it's more sensitive it doesn't make it 'better'. Imagine you were CONSTANTLY aware of your clothes rubbing against your skin - it'd drive you mad.[/QUOTE]
It makes it better in every [I]practical[/I] way such as sensing pressure and texture correctly.
This is an awesome solution, it always bugged me that we have sensors for just about everything except touch across a surface rather than just a button or limit switch.
If your fingers were that sensitive you'd probably constantly feel the wind, orgasm when someone touches you and fall into a coma when you cut yourself
I want to see what other practice uses people will come up with; not that prostheses is not a good enough use.
[QUOTE=MendozaMan;36409457]If your fingers were that sensitive you'd probably constantly feel the wind, orgasm when someone touches you and fall into a coma when you cut yourself[/QUOTE]
[b]PAPER CUTS OH JESUS[/b]
amazing, being a robotics engineer must be so rewarding when you see your ideas come to life.
But can they get [B][U]the FEELS?[/U][/B]
Roboclit
Make it step on a Lego piece.
[QUOTE=PyroCF;36410302]Make it step on a Lego piece.[/QUOTE]
Let's keep this civilized. You don't want to wish that upon anyone, living or not.
More sensitive doesn't mean that you will overreact to it. You just react quicker and easier to the same impressions.
I hope this gets used in prosthetics. I imagine one of the worst parts of losing a hand is not being able to feel anything with your fake one.
Build replacement dicks for the people who had theirs cut off by bitches with scissors.
[QUOTE=sltungle;36408335]The first line of the article bugs me; just because it's more sensitive it doesn't make it 'better'. Imagine you were CONSTANTLY aware of your clothes rubbing against your skin - it'd drive you mad.[/QUOTE]
.. you can feel clothes being on. good thing most clothes are comfortable.
[QUOTE=MendozaMan;36409457]If your fingers were that sensitive you'd probably constantly feel the wind, [B]orgasm when someone touches you[/B] and fall into a coma when you cut yourself[/QUOTE]
I already do that.
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksTlfklav-k[/media]
I don't understand why the article didn't look for and link the video.
Also I bet they can improve or replace the bayesian algorithm they have to get faster and almost instant results.
now wait until we can connect electronics directly to the nervous system
We could get this show on the road if we get these guys to collaborate with people who design gynoids.
[QUOTE=sHiBaN;36408328]:quagmire:
[editline]Ok[/editline]
The brain determines that. Imagine being able to feel every single fiber on a piece of cloth or being able to touch and feel every single hair on your arm[/QUOTE]
"OH MY GOD IM COMING IN MY OWN CLOTHES THIS FEELS SO GOOD AND SO AWFUL AT THE SAME TIME!"
[QUOTE=axelord157;36414952]We could get this show on the road if we get these guys to collaborate with people who design gynoids.[/QUOTE]
the sensor is more static in that it doesn't stretch like human skin.
though 10 years down the line you could see future generations of this be applied with future polymers to cover artifical muscles and a robot's skeletal structure.
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