
via Cornell University
A new synthetic material that creates a linked sensory network similar to a biological nervous system could enable soft robots to sense how they interact with their environment and adjust their actions accordingly.
The stretchable optical lace material was developed by Ph.D. student Patricia Xu through the Organics Robotics Lab at Cornell University.
“We want to have a way to measure stresses and strains for highly deformable objects, and we want to do it using the hardware itself, not vision,” said lab director Rob Shepherd, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering and the paper’s senior author. “A good way to think about it is from a biological perspective. A blind person can still feel because they have sensors in their fingers that deform when their finger deforms. Robots don’t have that right now.”
Shepherd’s lab previously created sensory foams that used optical fibers to detect such deformations. For the optical lace project, Xu used a flexible, porous lattice structure manufactured from 3D-printed polyurethane. She threaded its core with stretchable optical fibers containing more than a dozen mechanosensors and then attached an LED light to illuminate the fiber.
When she pressed the lattice structure at various points, the sensors were able to pinpoint changes in the photon flow.
“When the structure deforms, you have contact between the input line and the output lines, and the light jumps into these output loops in the structure, so you can tell where the contact is happening,” Xu said. “The intensity of this determines the intensity of the deformation itself.”
The optical lace would not be used as a skin coating for robots, Shepherd said, but would be more like the flesh itself. Robots fitted with the material would be better suited for the health care industry, specifically beginning-of-life and end-of-life care, and manufacturing.
While the optical lace does not have as much sensitivity as a human fingertip, which is jam-packed with nerve receptors, the material is more sensitive to touch than the human back. The material is washable, too, which leads to another application: Shepherd’s lab has launched a startup company to commercialize Xu’s sensors to make garments that can measure a person’s shape and movements for augmented reality training.
Learn more: Nerve-like ‘optical lace’ gives robots a human touch
The Latest on: Linked sensory network
via Google News
The Latest on: Linked sensory network
- How Does Pain Affect Your Sleep?on January 13, 2021 at 1:55 pm
The International Association for the Study of Pain (IASP) defines pain as an unpleasant, sensory, and emotional experience associated with actual or potential tissue damage or described in terms ...
- Disagreeing takes up a lot of brain real estateon January 12, 2021 at 9:17 pm
When two people agree, their brains exhibit a calm synchronicity of activity focused on sensory areas of the brain ... "Our entire brain is a social processing network," said senior author ...
- Disagreeing takes up a lot of brain real estateon January 12, 2021 at 9:05 pm
When two people agree, their brains exhibit a calm synchronicity of activity focused on sensory areas of the brain ... “Our entire brain is a social processing network,” said senior author Joy Hirsch, ...
- Elusive link between seizures, cell signaling protein ID'd in zebrafishon January 10, 2021 at 4:00 pm
For the brain to learn, retain memories, process sensory information, and coordinate body movements, its groups of nerve cells must generate coordinated electrical signals. Disorder in synchronous ...
- To Be Is To Be Perceived – Comic Store In Your Futureon January 10, 2021 at 9:11 am
Perception. A quick Google search comes up with the definition of perception as: "Perception is the organization, identification, and interpretation of sensory information to represent and ...
- If you do this while drinking coffee, it can completely ruin the tasteon January 8, 2021 at 4:00 pm
Recent literature has indicated that our enjoyment of coffee (or its hedonic value) is governed by many different sensory elements alongside taste. According to a new paper published in the ...
- Perceiving prosthesis as lighter thanks to neurofeedbackon January 8, 2021 at 9:22 am
Transmitting sensory signals from prostheses to the nervous system helps leg amputees to perceive prosthesis as part of their body. While amputees generally perceive their prostheses as heavy ...
- Study shows people hear what they expect to hearon January 8, 2021 at 9:05 am
During the last 20 years, neuroscience research has revealed that the cerebral cortex constantly generates predictions on what will happen next, and that neurons in charge of sensory processing ...
- Carleton Students Research Low-Carbon Concrete, Sustainable Building Materialson January 7, 2021 at 10:44 pm
Both are building materials with the potential to reduce our carbon footprint — and both are being developed by master’s students in the Carleton Sensory Architecture and Liminal ...
- Aesop's Brand New Gift Kits: the Sensory Chronicles Are Finally Hereon January 3, 2021 at 2:19 am
(MENAFN - Dubai PR Network) It's not easy finding the perfect ... With all new sets titled Sensory Chronicles, Aesop's collection of Gift Kits pays tribute to the remarkable power of the ...
via Bing News