Researchers from the University of Cambridge and University College London have developed a skin that can be added to robot hands like a glove. It is not as sensitive as human skin but it can detect 860,000 different types of touch.
The process to create it was done by using physical tests and machine learning techniques to teach the robot similar pathways to humans.
"Having different sensors for different types of touch leads to materials that are complex to make," said lead author Dr David Hardman from Cambridge's Department of Engineering. "We wanted to develop a solution that can detect multiple types of touch at once, but in a single material."
"We're not quite at the level where the robotic skin is as good as human skin, but we think it's better than anything else out there at the moment," said Thuruthel. "Our method is flexible and easier to build than traditional sensors, and we're able to calibrate it using human touch for a range of tasks."
The researchers are hoping to improve the skin and test it for more realistic tasks, in the future.
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