A FLEXIBLE electronic skin that can sense when things are too hot to handle or how hard it is being pressed could give robots an almost human sense of touch.
Takao Someya and colleagues at the University of Tokyo in Japan embedded electronic circuit sensors in a net-like matrix of thin plastic film that was flexible enough to wrap around an egg. One layer of transistors measures pressure while a separate semiconductor layer monitors temperature, enabling the so-called e-skin to sense both simultaneously (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, DOI: 10.1073/pnas.00502392102).
鈥淲e really want to develop new technologies which make it possible to entirely cover the surface of robot bodies with e-skins,鈥� Someya says.
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