New technology allows robots to feel touch without artificial skin

A team of researchers has developed a technological advance that allows robots to sense touch without the need for artificial skin or tactile instruments, opening up a range of possibilities for physical interaction between humans and machines.

This new approach, led by Maged Iskandar of the Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics at the German Aerospace Center DLR, allows a robot to detect and interpret human contact without the need to cover its surface with biomimetic skin or special high-strength materials. The importance of energy sensors.

“The intrinsic sense of touch we propose in this work could serve as the basis for an advanced category of human-robot physical interaction that is currently not possible, allowing for a shift from traditional modalities to adaptability, flexibility, and intuitive control,” the authors emphasized.

Details of the study were published Wednesday in the journal Science Robotics.

Touch is a sense that allows humans to interact delicately with the physical environment.

To physically interact with people, robots must be equipped with sensitive yet reliable sensors that can detect applied force, which can be expensive and difficult when working with large or curved robotic surfaces.

To overcome these challenges, Iskandar’s team used tools already integrated into the Safe Autonomous Robotic Assistant, a robotic arm with high-resolution force and torque sensors in the joints that, in addition to recording applied force, measure position and directional motion.

Thanks to sensors and artificial intelligence, the robot is able to detect where and in what order a person touches it, and, therefore, sensitively perceive its environment and accurately determine the tactile trajectories applied in time and space along its path.

The researchers combined this ability with several learning algorithms to interpret the applied touch and showed that the robot could recognize numbers or letters drawn on its surface through neural networks.

So if a person draws the number six on the robot, the technology will be able to interpret that it is actually the number six.

The team also expanded this mechanism to include “virtual buttons” or sliders on the robot’s surface that could be used to activate specific commands or movements.

The authors suggest 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 possibilities in terms of intuitive and flexible interaction.”