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Scientific Writing – A team of German researchers has developed a technology that allows robots to have a sense of touch without the use of artificial skin or tactile instruments. The system will open the door to a range of future physical interaction possibilities between humans and robots.
The new method, developed by Maged Iskandar of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center, enables robots to sense and interpret human touch without having to cover their surfaces with expensive bionic skin or special sensors.
“The intrinsic sense of touch we propose in this work could serve as the basis for advanced categories of human-robot physical interactions that are currently not possible, enabling a shift from traditional approaches to adaptable, flexible, and intuitive manipulation,” write the authors.
Details of the research were published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.
The sense of touch is a property that allows humans to interact subtly with their physical environment.
To physically interact with humans, robots must be equipped with sensitive but durable sensors capable of detecting applied forces, which can be expensive and complex when dealing with large or curved robot surfaces.
To overcome these challenges, Iskandar’s team used instrumentation that had been integrated into the Safe Autonomous Robotic Assistant (SARA) system, a robotic arm equipped with high-resolution “force and torque” sensors at its joints that, in addition to recording the forces applied to them, measure position and guide movement.
With the help of sensors and artificial intelligence, the robot can detect where and in what order humans touch it, thereby sensitively sensing its surroundings and precisely locating the temporal and spatial tactile trajectory of its surface.
The researchers combined this capability with a variety of learning algorithms to interpret applied touch and showed that a robot could use a neural network to recognize numbers or letters traced on its surface.
So if a human draws the number “6” on the robot, the technology will be able to interpret that the number drawn is indeed “6”.
Additionally, the team expanded on this mechanism by adding “virtual buttons” or sliders on the robot’s surface that can be used to activate specific commands or actions.
The authors believe that this approach provides the system with an intuitive and precise sense of touch and increases the range of possible physical interactions between humans and robots, opening up “unexplored opportunities in intuitive and flexible human-robot interaction.”
The intrinsic sense of touch proposed in this work can serve as the basis for a higher-level category of human-robot physical interaction, which enables a shift from traditional approaches to adaptable, flexible, and intuitive manipulation. Efei
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