Robotic Skin Lights Up When Touched - Wired Science

Robotic Skin Lights Up When Touched - Wired Science Thinner than a sheet of paper, the skin is made from layers of plastic and a pressure-sensitive rubber. A conductive silver ink, organic LEDs, and thin-film transistors made from semiconductor-enriched carbon nanotubes are sandwiched between the layers. Applying pressure sends a signal through the rubber that ultimately turns on the LEDs, which light up in red, green, yellow or blue.

Air bubbles could be the secret to artificial skin

Air bubbles could be the secret to artificial skin: On a uniform elastomeric substrate, traction tests revealed the creation of micro-fissures in the metallic layer, which would eventually result in the rupture of the conducting network. But with foam substrates, these cracks only occurred above the air bubbles. "Between the bubbles, the metal remained intact. The conducting network is thus maintained and can function," she explains. "Our measurements showed that we could achieve a level of elasticity over 100% without disrupting the network. These metallic pathways built upon foam could thus be used as electrodes, sensors or interconnections for the electronic skin that we're developing."

Zinc Oxide Nanowires Transistors Can Be Sophisticated Pressure Sensors | MIT Technology Review

Zinc Oxide Nanowires Transistors Can Be Sophisticated Pressure Sensors | MIT Technology Review: In the new research, Wang’s group demonstrates nanoelectronics that offer at least a 15-fold enhancement in sensor density and spatial resolution compared to the previous approaches... The density, resolution, and sensitivity of the sensors, says Wang, is comparable to that of the skin of a human finger...

In Wang’s nanowire transistors, the gate traditionally used in electronics is eliminated. Instead, the current flowing through the nanowires is controlled by the electrical charge generated when strain or force applied is to the transistors.

It's Almost Impossible To Believe There's a Robot In This Suit and Not a Real Human

It's Almost Impossible To Believe There's a Robot In This Suit and Not a Real Human: And it's not just Petman's gait and movements that are incredibly realistic. The humanoid's artificial skin is designed to detect chemical leaks if a suit has failed, and is actually able to produce its own micro-climate to recreate hot and sweaty conditions.

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms

New Scientist TV: Frankenoctopus unveils novel shape-shifting arms: The first prototype, currently on display at the Science Museum in London, has six silicone legs designed for locomotion, while two specialised arms use artificial muscles, motors and sensors to detect and grasp objects. A spring-like structure inside these tentacles, made from a shape-memory alloy, can expand, contract or bend in any direction with changes in temperature.

Cecilia Laschi of Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies in Pisa, Italy, and colleagues control their robot's behaviour via a centralised unit that mimics the central nervous system of an octopus.

One Per Cent: Hairy sensors to give robots sensitive skin

One Per Cent: Hairy sensors to give robots sensitive skin: Similar to their organic counterparts, the 50-nanometre-wide hairs of Suh's device twist and bend against each other when an external force like a beating heart or a soft touch is applied.

The contact between the hairs generates an electrical current which the sensor identifies as specific changes in pressure, shear or torsion...

... It could detect the dynamic motion of a tiny water droplet bouncing on a hydrophobic plate and the physical force of a heartbeat....

Blog - Elastic Electrical Cables for Robotic Skin

Blog - Elastic Electrical Cables for Robotic Skin: Typically, for robots to be able to articulate their rigid joints, roboticists have to include extra, slack wiring to accommodate the movement. A stretchy cable is more forgiving, eliminating the need for some of that slack. Asahi Kasei is also one of the world's major manufacturers of spandex (though under the brands ROICA and Dorlastan), so the company is very much at home in the world of the stretchy. "We thought, if we can make a cable that stretches by a factor of 1.5, it could be used for wearable electronics, or for wiring the skin of humanoid robots..."

Artificial Skin Feels With Nerves Made of Clear Nanotube Springs | Popular Science

Artificial Skin Feels With Nerves Made of Clear Nanotube Springs | Popular Science: Lipomi and colleagues in Zhenan Bao’s skin lab used nanotubes suspended in liquid, spraying them onto a silicone surface and then stretching the silicone...
The sensors are made from two nanotube-coated silicone pieces, sandwiching a third layer of deformable silicone that stores an electrical charge. When pressure is applied, the device’s capacitance increases, and this can be used to calculate the amount of pressure. It’s not quite as sensitive as another super-sensitive skin developed in the same lab last year, because the researchers were focused on making this one transparent.

The Future of Skin | Popular Science

The Future of Skin | Popular Science: Click through to the gallery for a look at some recent breakthroughs in skin technology.

'Electronic Skin' Grafts Gadgets to Body - ScienceNOW

'Electronic Skin' Grafts Gadgets to Body - ScienceNOW: Now, Rogers and his colleagues at Urbana-Champaign and other institutions in the United States, Singapore, and China have come up with a form of electronics that almost precisely matches skin's mechanical properties. Known as epidermal electronics, they can be applied in a similar way to a temporary tattoo: you simply place it on your skin and rub it on with water...
In one experiment, the group applied a device the size of a postage stamp to a person's chest to pick up the electrical signals produced by the heart. The measurements agreed "remarkably well" with those produced by a hospital electrocardiogram, the researchers say, without relying on potentially uncomfortable gels or tape. In another experiment, the group applied a device containing a microphone to a person's throat and fed the signal to a computer. The computer could recognize four different words: "up," "down," "left," and "right."

Scientists develop sensitive skin for robots

Scientists develop sensitive skin for robots: The centerpiece of the new robotic shell is a 5 square centimeter hexagonal plate or circuit board. Each small circuit board contains four infrared sensors that detect anything closer than 1 centimeter. "We thus simulate light touch," explains Mittendorfer. "This corresponds to our sense of the fine hairs on our skin being gently stroked." There are also six temperature sensors and an accelerometer. This allows the machine to accurately register the movement of individual limbs, for example, of its arms, and thus to learn what body parts it has just moved. "We try to pack many different sensory modalities into the smallest of spaces," explains the engineer. "In addition, it is easy to expand the circuit boards to later include other sensors, for example, pressure."
Plate for plate, the boards are placed together forming a honeycomb-like, planar structure to be worn by the robot.

Printed Electronics World: Engineers make artificial skin out of nanowires

Printed Electronics World: Engineers make artificial skin out of nanowires: The UC Berkeley engineers utilized an innovative fabrication technique that works somewhat like a lint roller in reverse. Instead of picking up fibers, nanowire "hairs" are deposited.

The researchers started by growing the germanium/silicon nanowires on a cylindrical drum, which was then rolled onto a sticky substrate. The substrate used was a polyimide film, but the researchers said the technique can work with a variety of materials, including other plastics, paper or glass. As the drum rolled, the nanowires were deposited, or "printed," onto the substrate in an orderly fashion, forming the basis from which thin, flexible sheets of electronic materials could be built.

Technology Review: Electric Skin that Rivals the Real Thing

Technology Review: Electric Skin that Rivals the Real Thing: "The core of Bao's device consists of a clear silicon-containing polymer called PDMS. This material's ability to store charge is directly related to its thickness. A few years ago, researchers led by Takao Someya at the University of Tokyo took advantage of this property, using PDMS as the insulating layer in flexible organic transistors that acted as pressure sensors...

Ali Javey, professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, has built low-power tactile sensors based on arrays of inorganic nanowire transistors. The transistors are arranged beneath, and connected to, a layer of a commercially available conductive rubber that contains carbon nanoparticles. When the rubber is compressed, its electrical resistance changes, and this can be detected by the transistors. "The nanowires are being used as active electronics to run the tactile sensor on top," he explains.