<section id="isPasted">Even the most advanced robots struggle to sense touch as effectively as humans do -- just think of all the “fail” videos online where robots grasp eggs and accidentally crack them, or a robot arm moves too fast and smashes a bottle to pieces. Touch has been a huge challenge for roboticists who are working to develop more sophisticated systems that enable robots to accomplish tasks with human-like precision and adaptability.<h2>New tool gives machines a new level of dexterity and precision</h2>To address this challenge,&nbsp;<a href="https://yunzhuli.github.io/">Yunzhu Li</a>, an assistant professor of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.cs.columbia.edu/">computer science</a> at&nbsp;<a href="https://www.engineering.columbia.edu/">Columbia Engineering</a>, has developed a robot learning system that fuses the sense of touch with sight, giving machines a new level of dexterity and precision. His latest paper introduces&nbsp;<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.24091">3D-ViTac</a>, a multi-modal robot manipulation system that is the first to integrate visual and tactile data into a unified 3D point cloud space for imitation learning. This system allows robots to “see” and “feel” objects, handle fragile objects, and perform long-horizon, precise tasks far more effectively than vision-only systems. Li and collaborators presented the paper Nov. 6 at the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.corl.org/">Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL)</a> in Munich, Germany.“Our tactile sensors bring robots' sensing capabilities a step closer to human levels,” said Li, who joined Columbia this year. This research builds on his previous work on a&nbsp;<a href="https://stag.csail.mit.edu/">tactile glove for understanding how humans use their hands</a>. “The sensors are flexible, scalable, cost-effective, and able to detect detailed contact patterns, making them superior to previous tactile sensors used by robots.”<h2>New approach&nbsp;</h2>In this work, the researchers introduce a high-resolution force sensor, made from force-sensitive materials (specifically, piezoresistive materials), to the robot learning community to mimic human tactile sensing capabilities. The piezoresistive tactile sensor converts applied pressure into changes in electrical resistance. This change in resistance enables the robot to “feel” the objects it interacts with, allowing for precise grip strength and accurate in-hand object manipulation.</section><section><h2>3D-ViTac in Action</h2><iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZN3mHMNZC7Q?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>This contact-rich data provides a clear demonstration of how touch can enhance manipulation and how combining touch with vision can bring robots closer to human-level dexterity. The system was tested on tasks like grasping fragile items, such as eggs and grapes, and performing in-hand manipulation, like reorienting a hex key between fingers or adjusting the grip on a spatula. The tactile and visual fusion significantly outperformed systems relying solely on visual inputs, which was especially useful when handling fragile items or doing tasks with limited visibility.<h2>Thin, flexible tactile sensors transform robots from clunky tools into ones capable of precise, fluid manipulation&nbsp;</h2>The researchers developed a dense, flexible tactile sensor array integrated into a soft robotic gripper. The data from the sensors, combined with visual data, generate a 3D-point cloud, like a visual representation or a scene, that enables the robot to both “see” and “feel” its surroundings. The tactile feedback allows the robot to adjust its grip strength in real time, which is especially crucial when visual information is limited or occluded.&nbsp;Equipped with “fingers” capable of feeling the world around them, these robots can now handle fragile objects with care. Thin, flexible tactile sensors cover their hands, enabling them to perceive the slightest pressure and adjust their movements accordingly. This innovation has transformed the robots from clunky tools into ones capable of precise, fluid manipulation once thought impossible for machines.“This breakthrough also enables robots to handle occluded objects more reliably and effectively,” said&nbsp;<a href="https://binghao-huang.github.io/">Binghao Huang</a>, the project lead and a Columbia Engineering PhD student who works with Li. Occlusion occurs when an object is hidden from view, which is problematic for robots that rely on visual information to manipulate objects. “As the demand for humanoid robots to assist with household chores grows, our bimanual system equipped with tactile sensors presents a promising solution for achieving such tasks.”<h2>What’s next?</h2>With this leap forward in robotics, the line between human and machine skills begins to blur, opening the door to a future where robots cannot only see the world but feel it, too.&nbsp;The next step for the researchers is to further improve the system's scalability and to scale up data collection. They are also developing a tactile simulation and integrating it into the robot learning process. This will allow for larger-scale data collection and better generalization of the policy, enabling the system to perform well in new situations for which it was not explicitly trained.<hr><h2>About the Study</h2>Conference:&nbsp;<a href="https://www.corl.org/">Conference on Robot Learning (CoRL)</a> in Munich, Germany, November 6-9, 2024.Title:&nbsp;<a href="https://binghao-huang.github.io/3D-ViTac/">3D ViTac: Learning Fine-Grained Manipulation with Visuo-Tactile Sensing</a>Authors: Binghao Huang1, Yixuan Wang1, Xinyi Yang2, Yiyue Luo3, Yunzhu Li1,&nbsp;<ol><li>Columbia University</li><li>University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign</li><li>University of Washington</li></ol>Funding: This work is partly funded by the Toyota Research Institute (TRI). This research solely reflects the opinions and conclusions of its authors and not TRI or any other Toyota entity.</section>

Columbia Engineering computer scientists introduce a novel system that mimics human tactile sensing capabilities in robots.

Advancing Robotics with the Power of Touch

In this episode, we explore an innovative and sustainable wearable device designed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to improve posture and we discuss why AI isn’t just a novelty in this product but a core feature that sets it apart from the rest!<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/d57569bc-03b3-422f-b7d5-738ddd6707a9?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe><hr><h3 id="isPasted">Episode Notes</h3>(0:50) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/innovative-wearable-sustainably-improving-posture" target="_blank">Innovative Wearable: Sustainably Improving Posture</a>Become a founding reader of our newsletter: <a href="http://read.thenextbyte.com/" target="_blank">http://read.thenextbyte.com/</a><hr><h2 data-attrid="title" data-local-attribute="d3bn" data-ved="2ahUKEwiBhLnmu4aAAxVmwjgGHcDWC38Q3B0oAXoECEgQEQ" id="isPasted">Transcript</h2>Gosh, my neck, my back, they hurt so bad from my poor posture. If you're just like me, you're not alone, right? Poor posture is impacting millions of people around the world. And if your back hurts from poor posture, the way that Farbod and my back hurts from carrying the podcast game, you're going to want to check out this episode. Cause we're talking about a startup called StraightUp. That's making a wearable device to help you correct your posture over time.I'm Daniel, and I'm Farbod. And this is the NextByte Podcast. Every week, we explore interesting and impactful tech and engineering content from Wevolver.com and deliver it to you in bite sized episodes that are easy to understand, regardless of your background.&nbsp;Daniel:&nbsp;What's up folks? Like we said on today's podcast episode, we're talking all about back pain and neck pain, which is a widespread issue. And this basically fledgling startup of students from Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, KIT, they made a startup called StraightUp. That's StraightUp gonna fix your back, StraightUp gonna fix your neck problems and make sure that you're StraightUp, standing StraightUp and sitting StraightUp all the time because I don't know, I think it's awesome the way that they've used technology in this sustainable user-friendly approach. I don't want to jump too fast into it. Maybe we talk a little bit more about the why first, but I think it's StraightUp interesting.Farbod: I StraightUp agree with you. And I think I'm very relevant to the why. They talk about how in the Western world, our sedentary life has led to us having a lot of back problems, a lot of neck problems. And then, a lot of people don't exercise a lot. So, I'm gonna call myself out from 8 a.m. today. It's almost 8 p.m. now. I have basically been slouched on the couch looking at a monitor. And even right now, like I had to straighten up as you started talking about the topic. My back has just kind of been hunched over. You know, I'm a youngish man right now. So, the effects have been somewhat minimal, but I feel like if I don't correct this, it's gonna catch up with me and I'm gonna feel the pain down the road. Now, Daniel over here, he's already ahead of the curve. This man is religious about his standing desk. So, he obviously has no idea what the rest of us in the Western world are talking about.Daniel:&nbsp;I know exactly what you're talking about. This is exactly why I stand up every day when I'm working at my desk, because I do have back pain. I do have neck pain from sitting on the couch or sitting in a chair and slouching. And my dad, like, had to have like really invasive back surgery and all this stuff. And he says a lot of it is probably because of his sedentary office environment, lack of movement during the day, poor posture, created a chronic issue in his back that could only be fixed by surgery. So, I'm trying to take some preventative measures along the way, but I still think there's a lot that I can do to improve my posture. And what's crazy is like a vast majority of back pain and back surgeries, chiropractor visits, et cetera. Doctors contribute a vast majority of those actually to just people's posture, right? Something that you do every single day, you know, 99 plus percent of the time, whenever you're sitting in a chair, staring at a screen or staring at your phone, that creates a lot of long-term impact on your body. And the traditional solutions for posture correcting either restrict your mobility. Right. They feel like you're like strapped into something or there's even like these new startups trying to think of one, I think it's called Upright. Which is crazy because this one's called StraightUp. So maybe they've got some beef already. But Upright is something that I've seen a lot of Instagram ads for. And it basically looks like about something about size of an AirPods case. And it hangs on a necklace on your back and it's supposed to like vibrate and let you know when you've bent over too far like you're slouching a little bit. But one of the challenges with that, and I've actually, no joke, like I'm not trying to just show StraightUp here. I've actually like looked into it and saw people on Reddit saying like, this thing's so freaking annoying. It vibrates like whenever I bend down to pick something up off the ground, I'm like, I'm not slouching. I'm just literally picking something up off the ground. So, traditional solutions either restrict your mobility, you're in a brace or they give inaccurate feedback during common most common movements. So, both of those, less effective than they could be. So, enter this team straight up, spin-off from Karlsruhe institutes at technology, I think it's three students.Farbod: Three students and a physiotherapist. Yeah.Daniel: And a physiotherapist from KIT, right? They're teaming up to try and tackle this problem with a more user-friendly approach. And this more user-friendly approach is correcting posture using haptic feedback. So, for those of you that don't know what haptic feedback is, that's like when you're typing on your phone and it vibrates a little bit, or you press a button on your phone and it vibrates a little bit, lets your body know with a physical response that the way it's interacting with something. So, in this case, the way you interact with this device is it does small vibrations, haptic feedback, to let you know when you have bad posture, to try and remind you, hey, it's time to maybe put your shoulder blades back a little bit and straighten out your neck. That gives you a little bit of a vibration as a reminder for that. It's not very restrictive like a brace. And essentially, it's this wearable that helps correct your posture. It measures your shoulder position, measures your back inclination, measures the position of your neck and tries to help encourage you to learn healthy posture. And that's one of the challenges, let's say with like a normal back brace right now to try and fix this. And Nellie even bought a posture corrector and had the same complaint, which is like, it feels like it's forcing my body to be in the right position rather than teaching it to be in the right position. So, the second you take it off, your body hasn't learned to make this its new natural home. You just go back to slouching like you were before, and it just feels kind of uncomfortable when you're wearing it. So instead of forcing your body to be in the right position, it's slowly teaching it and encouraging it with haptic feedback to maintain proper posture.Farbod: Yeah, and I mean, we can kind of start jumping into their solution, but they kind of got the best of both worlds figured out. On the material side, they chose this elastic metal alloy. So, as the name implies, it's made of metal, but it's elastic so it can conform to your body. So, it's not super rigid. Instead of having a, you know what you were talking about, I think Upright, I don't know how Upright technology works. I'm guessing that little necklace has some sort of sensor that says if you've been tilted this much, give it vibration. These folks over at StraightUp are using an AI, which I am guessing takes into account a bunch of different feedback from the harness to then say, yeah, this person's actually been crouching over their computer for an extended period of time versus, oh, they're just bending over to pick something up, or maybe they're playing a sport. And just being able to differentiate between what your body's doing in different conditions instead of a binary, oh, you're in a bad posture, or no, you're in a perfect posture.Daniel:&nbsp;Yeah, I think this is like the more nuanced next generation version of some of the things that we've seen before. Not to dog on Upright at all, right? It's a great idea. But this feels like almost like an extra twist on that, that uses these, they call them conductive super elastic metal alloys, which basically in my mind, my interpretation of this is they've got these metal wires that are weaved into the fabric of this harness that avoids all the bulkiness of having external components like an accelerometer or something like that. And what it does is it flexes with the user's movements and because it's super stretchy and because they also mentioned it's conductive, I’m imagining all they're doing is measuring the resistance of this wire and as the person changes position the resistance of the wire changes as it stretches or contracts with the body. And that allows them to gain a lot of insight on the body's position and then that allows them to you know use their AI process or whatever using the sensor data to distinguish between a normal forward bending motion versus harmful slouching. And then give the person direct haptic feedback. So, instead of locking your back into a rigid position, like a brace, what are giving you errant feedback, like some other solutions do, it tries to make sure that it knows exactly when you're holding bad posture, gives you a subtle vibration to try and train your body, say, oh, I actually have bad posture. I'm going to put my shoulders back. I'm going to straighten out my neck a little bit and it promotes you actively correcting your posture. Building better muscles to stabilize your shoulder blades in your spine and your neck as opposed to like forcing your body to do it or giving you too many notifications. So, you do it at the wrong time.Farbod: Yeah. And that in itself is already pretty promising. What I found to be even more impressive is that it looks like they're now working with the German Institute for Textile and Fiber Research. I'm guessing they're doing this to better understand how they can kind of merge this technology into a shirt or something that you would just wear. So, it's not like a separate device. And that is like, it just kind of plants the seed in my brain where I'm like, if you're able to extract that much information about posture, could you then make this a wearable that assist folks that are doing general physiotherapy and getting their movements in to heal from some sort of injury? Or for the average Joe on a day-to-day basis, could you use that to collect health data and provide, I don't know, more detailed feedback in terms of how your muscles are responding to different stimuli?Daniel:&nbsp;That's exactly where my brain went to man. Like Nellie and I are, we're in the pain cave right now for marathon training. Like we're in the thick of it. We're a couple of weeks out from the marathon race and we're dealing with some nagging injuries. And one of the things that they say potentially a lot of these injuries stem from is like poor form, poor running form, which is basically just your posture while you're running and then overuse of your muscles in that poor posture and I went exactly there too, man. I'm like, well, this is just focusing on posture of your neck and shoulders. What if there were other, I could put on a different type of harness or belt that looks at the posture of my hips and my glutes and my legs during my running, or look at the pronation of my feet, socks that look at the pronation of my feet during running and try and give me active reminders to correct my form and do it in a proper way. Also think about like lifting weights. People get hurt all the time lifting weights because they're doing it with the wrong form. They put on too much weight, they're trying to be strong, and then they do it the wrong way, and then bang, they injure the rotator cuff in their shoulder. Like there's a lot of other types of posture, not just the one that's when we're sedentary at our desk, that matters a lot to how our bodies perform and recover and interact with the world around us. I think that straight up starting with this, but they could absolutely apply this technology to other types of applications and get similar results.Farbod: Me too. It's crazy that you and I both went to the same spot given that I spend most of my time in a chair and you spent most of your time getting ready for a marathon. So, great minds think alike despite how lazy they might be.Daniel: I don't, I think I'm an equal amount of lazy. We're just, we're signed up for it. We're committed at this point, going to try and make it across the finish line. But I do want to mention, I think in terms of pros and cons. This wearable definitely could help lots and lots of people. I don't know from an adoption perspective; how many people are gonna be more willing to put this thing on. It looks a little bit more like a bra, like a harness than it does like a necklace. Feels a lot easier to try and convince someone like, oh, put on this necklace versus like put on this harness every single day. That being said, it does look like it's pretty sleek. Does look like it won't, you don't have to wear it over your clothes and it does look like it would be pretty form fitting. So, I think that that's interesting. I would be interested in how many, how many people of the millions of people suffering from posture related back pain would be willing to adopt this. But that goes to my pros, which is like, it seems like they've challenged, they overcome a lot of the challenges with AI based feedback system. Seems like they've overcome a lot of the challenges related to sustainability, right? Using haptic feedback and encouraging the person to use the right posture instead of forcing them to use the right posture. That feels like it's more sustainable. Having sensor accuracy in diverse environments, right? You want to get reminded to have correct posture when you're sitting. You maybe don't care too much if you're bending down to pick up the pencil off the ground. Like those, that's crucial in real world use. I would love to see how this compares with a competitor like Upright. And we've kind of alluded to it a couple of times, but these folks have created their own company called StraightUp. I think based on their website, I was on it earlier today, they're planning on launching in Kickstarter in 163 days. They've got a countdown, which is pretty cool. So, we'll definitely be following you, StraightUp team. And we'd love to see how this, how this tech solution continues to evolve and develop and hopefully make it to market and make a lot of impact. I say this on so many podcast episodes, but my biggest pet peeve about technology is when someone develops it and it could impact a lot of people and then it sits on a shelf and collects dust. This team from StraightUp is doing the exact opposite, right? They're taking their technology and sprinting to market as fast as they can, which is something that I really, really appreciate.Farbod:&nbsp;Yeah, and as a listener, if you're interested in something like this, make sure you check out their page, give them support as they launch. If you got feedback, it's a perfect time to just kind of get in on the ground floor and voice your opinions.Daniel: Yeah, I'm with you. And well, in addition to the article, which we, every single time, link in the show notes, we're gonna also link StraightUp's website so you can check it out and check out some of their content and watch the countdown till the Kickstarter launch, the way that I'm going to for the next 163 days and 11 hours and 53 minutes and five seconds.Farbod: If only it was before your marathon. Alas. All right, man, you wanna give us a quick wrap up?Daniel:&nbsp;Yes, I do. Do your neck and back hurt after hours of slouching at your desk, staring at your phone? If yes, like Farbod and me, you're not alone. Poor posture is pretty much our modern-day epidemic. Millions of people in the world struggle with their back and their neck pain that's caused specifically by poor posture, but a lot of the solutions out there, like braces actually just limit your mobility instead of training your body to do the right thing. So, what if your clothes or a slim wearable could silently train you to sit and stand correctly all day long? Enter the startup called StraightUp. They developed a slim wearable device that uses AI and sensors woven into the fabric to help correct your posture with the gentle vibrations, just training your body, teaching your body over time to move and to hold the right posture. I think of this as like the Garmin for exercise or the aura ring for sleep, but this is for posture I wonder if one day millions of people in the world will be using StraightUp to move the posture game forward in the future.Farbod:&nbsp;Money that was straight-up money.Daniel:&nbsp;Thanks, dawg.Farbod:&nbsp;Anytime. All right folks. Thank you so much for listening as always. We'll catch in the next one.Daniel:&nbsp;Peace.<hr id="isPasted">As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.To learn more about this show, please visit our<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">&nbsp;shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published. Be sure to give us a follow and review on<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Apple</a> podcasts,<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">&nbsp;Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!--The Next Byte: We're two engineers on a mission to simplify complex science &amp; technology, making it easy to understand. In each episode of our show, we dive into world-changing tech (such as AI, robotics, 3D printing, IoT, &amp; much more), all while keeping it entertaining &amp; engaging along the way.

In this episode, we explore an innovative and sustainable wearable device designed by researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to improve posture and we discuss why AI isn’t just a novelty in this product but a core feature that sets it apart from the rest!

Podcast: You Don't Stand Straight But This AI Wearable Will Fix It

Optical Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) Sensor 

This article delves deeper into the microscopic world of MEMS sensors, exploring their operating principles, diverse applications, and the cutting-edge advancements propelling them into the future.

MEMS Sensors: Miniature Marvels Revolutionizing Modern Technology

In this episode, we discuss how MIT researchers are making great strides in developing better robotic hands by focusing on an often overlooked component: the palm.

Podcast: Talk to The Hand: Meet The Robots With a Human Touch

This article was discussed in our <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/deaf3bb7-ff61-48d1-ad11-30ae0112d53e?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-gtm-yt-inspected-23="true" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> The full article will continue below.<hr>“I'll have you eating out of the palm of my hand” is an unlikely utterance you'll hear from a robot. Why? Most of them don't have palms.If you have kept up with the protean field, gripping and grasping more like humans has been an ongoing Herculean effort. Now, a new robotic hand design developed in MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) has rethought the oft-overlooked palm. The new design uses advanced sensors for a highly sensitive touch, helping the “extremity” handle objects with more detailed and delicate precision.<a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.08227" target="_blank">GelPalm</a> has a gel-based, flexible sensor embedded in the palm, drawing inspiration from the soft, deformable nature of human hands. The sensor uses a special color illumination tech that uses red, green, and blue LEDs to light an object, and a camera to capture reflections. This mixture generates detailed 3D surface models for precise robotic interactions.<iframe width="640" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/5S9dZQv5qAc?&amp;wmode=opaque&amp;rel=0&amp;enablejsapi=1&amp;origin=https://www.wevolver.com" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-form-tracking-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-lf-vimeo-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" data-gtm-yt-inspected-23="true" id="894047451" title="Robotic palm mimics human touch">&nbsp;</iframe>GelPalm. Video: MIT CSAILAnd what would the palm be without its facilitative fingers? The team also developed some robotic phalanges, called ROMEO (“RObotic Modular Endoskeleton Optical”), with flexible materials and similar sensing technology as the palm. The fingers have something called “passive compliance,” which is when a robot can adjust to forces naturally, without needing motors or extra control. This in turn helps with the larger objective: increasing the surface area in contact with objects so they can be fully enveloped. Manufactured as single, monolithic structures via 3D printing, the finger designs are a cost-effective production.Beyond improved dexterity, GelPalm offers safer interaction with objects, something that’s especially handy for potential applications like human-robot collaboration, prosthetics, or robotic hands with human-like sensing for biomedical uses.Many previous robotic designs have typically focused on enhancing finger dexterity. Liu's approach shifts the focus to create a more human-like, versatile end effector that interacts more naturally with objects and performs a broader range of tasks.&nbsp;“We draw inspiration from human hands, which have rigid bones surrounded by soft, compliant tissue,” says recent MIT graduate Sandra Q. Liu SM ’20, PhD ’24, the lead designer of GelPalm, who developed the system as a CSAIL affiliate and PhD student in mechanical engineering. “By combining rigid structures with deformable, compliant materials, we can better achieve that same adaptive talent as our skillful hands. A major advantage is that we don't need extra motors or mechanisms to actuate the palm's deformation — the inherent compliance allows it to automatically conform around objects, just like our human palms do so dexterously.”The researchers put the palm design to the test. Liu compared the tactile sensing performance of two different illumination systems — blue LEDs versus white LEDs — integrated into the ROMEO fingers. “Both yielded similar high-quality 3D tactile reconstructions when pressing objects into the gel surfaces,” says Liu.But the critical experiment, she says, was to examine how well the different palm configurations could envelop and stably grasp objects. The team got hands-on, literally slathering plastic shapes in paint and pressing them against four palm types: rigid, structurally compliant, gel compliant, and their dual compliant design. “Visually, and by analyzing the painted surface area contacts, it was clear having both structural and material compliance in the palm provided significantly more grip than the others,” says Liu. “It's an elegant way to maximize the palm's role in achieving stable grasps.”One notable limitation is the challenge of integrating sufficient sensory technology within the palm without making it bulky or overly complex. The use of camera-based tactile sensors introduces issues with size and flexibility, the team says, as the current tech doesn't easily allow for extensive coverage without trade-offs in design and functionality. Addressing this could mean developing more flexible materials for mirrors, and enhancing sensor integration to maintain functionality, without compromising practical usability.“The palm is almost completely overlooked in the development of most robotic hands,” says Columbia University Associate Professor Matei Ciocarlie, who wasn’t involved in the paper. “This work is remarkable because it introduces a purposefully designed, useful palm that combines two key features, articulation and sensing, whereas most robot palms lack either. The human palm is both subtly articulated and highly sensitive, and this work is a relevant innovation in this direction.”“I hope we're moving toward more advanced robotic hands that blend soft and rigid elements with tactile sensitivity, ideally within the next five to 10 years. It's a complex field without a clear consensus on the best hand design, which makes this work especially thrilling,” says Liu. “In developing GelPalm and the ROMEO fingers, I focused on modularity and transferability to encourage a wide range of designs. Making this technology low-cost and easy to manufacture allows more people to innovate and explore. As just one lab and one person in this vast field, my dream is that sharing this knowledge could spark advancements and inspire others.”Ted Adelson, the John and Dorothy Wilson Professor of Vision Science in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and CSAIL member, is the senior author on a <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/2404.08227" target="_blank">paper describing the work</a>. The research was supported, in part, by the Toyota Research Institute, Amazon Science Hub, and the SINTEF BIFROST project. Liu presented the research at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) earlier this month.

MIT CSAIL student Sandra Q. Liu displays her innovative GelPalm robotic design in her lab workspace. Photo: Michael Grimmett/MIT CSAIL

MIT CSAIL researchers enhance robotic precision with sophisticated tactile sensors in the palm and agile fingers, setting the stage for improvements in human-robot interaction and prosthetic technology.

Robotic palm mimics human touch

The perceptual abilities to be aware of the state of the outside world are indispensable for all living things to keep on living. Humans gather information through the five senses of sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. We use that information to recognize and understand the situation surrounding us with our superior intelligence. We then perform advanced actions and judgments. Looking at it comprehensively, the perceptual abilities of humans are probably among the best in the living world.However, if we focus on individual perceptual abilities, we find that there are many living things with abilities superior to those of humans. We are no match for the compound eyes of dragonflies when it comes to a sense of sight, whereby the movements of things are perceived in the surroundings. Furthermore, we can't compete with dogs in terms of our senses of hearing and smell. There are even living things that have the ability to capture information that cannot be detected by humans in the first place. Examples of these include migratory birds that determine their direction of flight by perceiving geomagnetism. If we stretch our imaginations further, there may even be perceptive abilities that capture information that living things in existence cannot detect.If we could acquire perception beyond the five senses of humans with the assistance of machines, how would it change our lives and society? We introduce trends in the development and utilization of technologies that realize the super-five senses.<h2>Extending Our Perceptual Abilities Utilizing Evolving Sensors and AI</h2>Sensors are electronic devices with the function to acquire information from the outside world. There are already a wide variety of sensors that can reproduce the five senses of humans. Image sensors, microphones, accelerometers, and temperature sensors are examples of those. There are also many sensors that have performance that exceeds the abilities of humans. For instance, there are infrared ray image sensors capable of detecting the existence of things in the dark. Furthermore, there are also sensors that can acquire information that cannot be detected by humans. Examples include geomagnetic sensors and CO2 sensors.Advances in sensor technologies have made it possible to realize the ability to gather information far beyond the abilities of humans. Nevertheless, even if the range of information we can obtain expands and diversifies, it does not mean it is possible to extend the perceptual abilities of humans. We cannot improve our perceptual abilities without also improving our ability to appropriately process the information we have collected at the same time.&nbsp;For example, facial recognition technology has come to be used for the personal verification of visitors when holding sports and other events. It has also become possible for visitors to gain admission to venues using a face pass without the need for a ticket by registering their image data in advance. Furthermore, in recent years, it has become possible to simultaneously recognize those who can enter and those who have not purchased a ticket by collectively recognizing images of crowds captured by cameras. This has made it possible to smoothly guide people into the venue without lines. In addition, technology has evolved to the point where it is possible to estimate the age and gender of visitors.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1696846836897-super5sense6-01.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">It can be said that such advanced perceptual abilities using machines are the super-five senses beyond the abilities of humans. However, in this example, the super-five senses have not been realized by an evolution in the performance of the sensors that collect the information; or, in other words, the performance of the cameras. The super-five senses have been realized by the evolution of the artificial intelligence (AI), which is utilized in the recognition processing of the acquired images.&nbsp;<h2>Detecting Machine Failures from Noises and Vibrations and Cancer from Exhaled Breath</h2>The advanced perceptual abilities of humans are realized by combining the detection abilities of the sensory organs like the eyes and ears and the cognitive abilities of the brain (Fig. 1). In a similar scheme, the super-five senses will be realized by advancing sensors and AI and then utilizing those technologies in combination. We would now like to introduce just a few examples from among those of the super-five senses already being put into practical use or under development.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1696846855213-super5sense6-02_en.png" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">Fig. 1: The perceptual abilities of both humans and machines comprise a combination of detection (information gathering) and cognition (information processing) abilitiesThe super-five senses are already being utilized in many cases in the field of monozukuri. Some factories that produce industrial products employ experienced workers with the ability to sense signs of failure in devices. They do that by identifying the slightest abnormal sounds mixed in with the sounds of those devices operating. This is a personal skill acquired through experience over many years. It can be said that this is an advanced perceptual ability that regular people do not possess. However, high-precision accelerometers are nowadays being mounted to such devices. This has enabled the detection of signs of failure by utilizing AI from the slightest changes in the vibrations of those devices. Moreover, technologies are also being put into practical use that pinpoint the place where abnormal sounds are being emitted on images captured by cameras through catching the slightest abnormal sounds. This is an example of the realization of perceptual abilities not possessed by humans in terms of converting auditory information into visual information.The super-five senses are also starting to be utilized in the field of medicine. A variety of information that reflects the physical and health condition of humans is contained in the things we excrete from our bodies. One of those is the air we exhale when we breathe. It is known that exhaled breath contains components that indicate signs of cancer, appearing as a change in odor. Nevertheless, the change in odor is extremely slight. Accordingly, it is difficult to detect such a change with the human sense of smell. However, there are cases of specially trained dogs called "cancer detecting dogs" being used to detect cancer. That is because dogs have a superior sense of smell that can discern such a change. Many companies and research institutions are carrying out R&amp;D to mechanize this ability by combining a gas sensor that detects the components contained in exhaled breath with AI and other information processing systems. If such a function is installed on a smartphone where exhaled breath is blown during a phone call, it may be possible to achieve a state as though the user was undergoing cancer screening on a daily basis. In addition, attempts are also underway to analyze acetone contained in exhaled breath and to then utilize that analysis in lifestyle-related disease prevention, dieting, and other areas of health.<h2>HSI That Finds Valuable Information from Invisible Light</h2>Furthermore, technologies that acquire information that cannot be obtained from visible light are being developed and utilized. This is done by combining image sensors that detect light with wavelengths that cannot be detected by humans such as ultraviolet rays and infrared rays with AI and other advanced information processing technologies. This technology is called hyperspectral imaging.It may be possible to acquire unexpectedly high-added-value information depending on the method of processing the information obtained from visible light as well. For instance, the nutrient of lycopene contained in tomatoes absorbs blue and green light. Therefore, tomatoes that contain lots of lycopene have a bright red appearance. In other words, we can detect nutrients from color. We can acquire even more diverse information without contact by also applying techniques with similar principles to light other than visible light.For example, it is possible to identify or otherwise recognize the state of pollution in the land, atmosphere, and water and the types of trees growing on the surface from images taken with visible light and infrared rays from an artificial satellite. In addition, it is also possible to discover contamination by foreign substances or abnormal ingredients in food production lines and to evaluate the content of specific amino acids including oleic acid, which is an umami (savory) ingredient. We can also check the health condition of people based on changes in their complexion that cannot be detected by the human eye.There is still room for significant advances in both sensors and AI. As a result, it seems there are infinite possibilities for what kind of super-five senses humans will acquire in the future.<hr><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1696846884169-1696846884169.png" class="fr-fic fr-dii">If you have any questions based on this article that you would like to discuss with an expert at Murata, don't hesitate to reach out. There's an entire team ready to support you with your question.<a href="https://www.murata.com/en-eu/contactform?&Detail=Wevolver%20request" target="_blank" rel="nofollow" class="button-main-action">GET IN TOUCH</a>

Sensors are electronic devices with the function to acquire information from the outside world. There are already a wide variety of sensors that can reproduce the five senses of humans. Image sensors, microphones, accelerometers, and temperature sensors are examples of those.

Super-Five Senses Created by Combining and Utilizing Sensors and AI

Announcing TechBlick&#39;s&nbsp;open free-to-attend&nbsp;virtual conference and exhibition day on 2 DEC 2022 from 13:00 CET to 19:00 CET. The conference will offer the following two parallel tracks:<ul><li dir="ltr">Track 1: &nbsp;Printed, Flexible, Hybrid, 3D Electronics: Innovation Showcase Day</li><li dir="ltr">Track 2: Wearable Sensors and Therapeutics, E-Textiles, and Continuous Vital Signs Monitoring</li></ul>You can view the combined agenda&nbsp;and register free&nbsp;<a href="https://techblick-dot-yamm-track.appspot.com/2ISOs9hOMy2x8pbhQhl6KSSvgJLWIkOrG6xamhF4N_XNJc7g4hAHrTK3lmPs6viFvxTWpwv-ZckWPjtUPOAWzWbCua0Z6ORGl6JITifLNV7zXxNP6u2slSvhW_RP_2SY2c1JW8AOJI3cmvLbxsAYYVpfxKU3_2gHjvUnYyyQoFx3X0bYTw_lxzeKOy3sdQyPw0xfcZeUBrfUVgA" target="_blank">here.</a>&nbsp; It is a unique event with two-parallel live tracks, a live engaging exhibition floor, and 400+ attendees. &nbsp;The exhibiting companies include the likes of Voltera, Epishine, Dupont Teijin Films, DoMicro, Copprint, InnovationLab, NovaCentrix, PulseForge, Fujikura Kasei, ImageXpert, Panacol, Neotech AMT, Celanese, Applied Materials, Coatema, Sateco, IDS, Ames Goldsmith, Kimoto, Encres Dubuit, Raymor, Quad Industries, Ynvisible, Brilliant Matters, CondAlign, DTI, and many moreFull AgendaThe times below is Central European Times (CET) / Berlin time.<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1668430736253-speakers+lpogos.jpg" style="width: 695px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">1:00pm &nbsp;ATT Advanced Thermal Technologies | How to keep Cameras, RADAR &amp; LiDAR Sensors free of Snow &amp; Ice by means of Printed Electronics &nbsp; 01:00pm&nbsp;&nbsp;DTI |&nbsp;Advance printed electronics and standardization within the smart wearables industry.01:15pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Singapore Institute of Manufacturing Technology (SIMTech) |&nbsp;Development of smart apparel for bio-signal measurement &nbsp;&nbsp;01:15pm&nbsp;&nbsp;VTT |&nbsp;Pilot factory for converting of next generation wearables towards high quality manufacturing processes &nbsp;&nbsp;01:30pm&nbsp;&nbsp;NexStem |&nbsp;Wearable Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCIs) - Measuring Signals Beyond Patches &nbsp;&nbsp;01:30pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Silicon Austria |&nbsp;Advancements in hybrid flexible electronics towards ultra-fine pitch chip bonding &nbsp;&nbsp;01:45pm&nbsp;&nbsp;ISRA |&nbsp;Fab-as-a-Service: prototyping &amp; manufacturing of copper based printed electronics devices &nbsp;&nbsp;01:45pm CondAlign&nbsp;| (TBC)02.00pm &nbsp;Exhibition &amp; Networking Break &nbsp;&nbsp;02:45pm &nbsp;Encres DUBUIT | Transparent and conductive films based on nanocellulose.&nbsp;02:45pm &nbsp;Zimmer Peacock | Printed Wearable Sensors for Sports and Athletic Performance &nbsp;03:00pm &nbsp;Binder ITZ | Printed sensors on 3D surfaces &nbsp;&nbsp;03:00pm &nbsp;EastPrint | (TBC) Wearable Biosensors: Overview of Printing Techniques03:15pm&nbsp;&nbsp;FLEEP Technologies |&nbsp;PrintIC: integrated circuits can be printed! &nbsp;&nbsp;03:15pm&nbsp;&nbsp;X-trodes |&nbsp;Soft electrode array for skin electro-physiology: New opportunities in sleep studies and rehabilitation &nbsp;&nbsp;03:30pm&nbsp;&nbsp;EERS Global Technologies/ &Eacute;cole de technologie sup&eacute;rieure |&nbsp;(TBC) In-Ear Sensors To Measure Biometric Data and Brain Signals: Present and Future &nbsp;&nbsp;03:30pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Marquardt Group |&nbsp;Fully printed organic photo sensor to supervise display functionality &nbsp;&nbsp;03:45pm&nbsp;&nbsp;University of Chicago |&nbsp;Skin-like wearable electronics with artificial-intelligence computing &nbsp;&nbsp;03:45pm&nbsp;&nbsp;e2ip |&nbsp;(TBC) InMold Electronics: Achieving ultra complex shapes with molecular inks &nbsp;&nbsp;4.00pm &nbsp;Exhibition &amp; Networking Break &nbsp;&nbsp;04:55pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Georgia Institute of Technology |&nbsp;Soft Wearable Bioelectronics for Human Healthcare and Human-Machine Interfaces &nbsp;&nbsp;04:55pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Murata Manufacturing |&nbsp;Highly Conductive MXene for Electronics &nbsp;&nbsp;05:10pm&nbsp;&nbsp;NAMICS Technologies |&nbsp;Low temperature sintering nano silver paste &nbsp;&nbsp;05:10pm&nbsp;&nbsp;University of Texas |&nbsp;Graphene based electronic tattoo technologies for complex electrophysiology &nbsp;&nbsp;05:25pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Tampere University |&nbsp;Arterial Pulse Wave Monitoring: Self-Powered, Highly Unobtrusive, Low-Cost and Accurate &nbsp;&nbsp;05:25pm MacDermid&nbsp;| (TBC) Ultralow temperature solder and pastes for InMold Electronics and Flexible Hybrid Electronics05:40pm&nbsp;&nbsp;MesoMat |&nbsp;Stretchable piezo-resitive yarns for strain sensing in high deformation systems &nbsp;&nbsp;05:40pm&nbsp;&nbsp;NanoPrintek |&nbsp;Dry Multimaterial Printer: An Ink-less Technology with On-Demand Generation and Real-time Sintering of Pure Nanoparticles &nbsp;&nbsp;05:55pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Cardiomo Care |&nbsp;(TBC) Continous Non-Invastive ECG Monitoring: Hardware and Software &nbsp;&nbsp;05:55pm&nbsp;CPI | Flexible Electronics for HealthTech06.10pm &nbsp;Exhibition &amp; Networking Break &nbsp;&nbsp;06:45pm&nbsp;&nbsp;Theranica Bio Electronics |&nbsp;Remote Electrical Neuromodulation: Wearable Medical DevicesYou can view the combined agenda and register free&nbsp;<a href="https://techblick-dot-yamm-track.appspot.com/2ISOs9hOMy2x8pbhQhl6KSSvgJLWIkOrG6xamhF4N_XNJc7g4hAHrTK3lmPs6viFvxTWpwv-ZckWPjtUPOAWzWbCua0Z6ORGl6JITifLNV7zXxNP6u2slSvhW_RP_2SY2c1JW8AOJI3cmvLbxsAYYVpfxKU3_2gHjvUnYyyQoFx3X0bYTw_lxzeKOy3sdQyPw0xfcZeUBrfUVgA" target="_blank">here.</a>&nbsp;

Announcing TechBlick's free-to-attend virtual conference and exhibition covering innovations in Wearable Sensors | E-Textiles | Printed Electronics & Beyond. It is a unique event with two-parallel live tracks, a live engaging exhibition floor, and 400+ attendees. See details & registration link here

Innovations: Wearable Sensors, E-Textiles, Printed Flexible Electronics

<a data-attribute-index="0" data-entity-hovercard-id="urn:li:fs_miniProfile:ACoAAAFeVQkBW6afBYfUUh_JYbfniwGE2Y7yljQ" data-entity-type="MINI_PROFILE" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/ACoAAAFeVQkBW6afBYfUUh_JYbfniwGE2Y7yljQ" id="isPasted" target="_blank">Daniel Haefliger</a> from&nbsp;<a data-attribute-index="2" data-entity-hovercard-id="urn:li:fs_miniCompany:3072981" data-entity-type="MINI_COMPANY" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/sateco-ag/" target="_blank">Sateco Group</a> presents its non-printed technology based on multilayers of moulded conductive silicone. &nbsp; This is a unique technology. The sensor typically has a size of 10-40mm with a thickness of &gt;3mm. It can measure forces in the range of 10-100 N with a resolution of around 0.1 N. The sensor can follow the direction of applied force for some 1mm.&nbsp; Interestingly, the exact behaviour of the sensor can be designed and adjusted by controlling the spaces between the layers to suit specific application requirements.&nbsp; The technology is reliable. It is shown that at room temperature, it experiences only 5% driff when subjected to 5,000,000 cycles of 20N force. It experiences only 20% drift over full scale when subjected to 100k cycles of 20N force at much harsher conditions&nbsp;(T range: -40 - 85C | RH: 0-90%) In clip from Daniel&#39;s full presentation given at&nbsp;<a data-attribute-index="4" data-entity-hovercard-id="urn:li:fs_miniCompany:71510477" data-entity-type="MINI_COMPANY" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/techblick/" target="_blank">TechBlick</a> in March 2022, you learn about some unique applications of this technology, including: 1- Collaborative robots: these robots work alongside or in close proximity to humans. They are not caged as are typically industrial robots. As such, they require integrated soft 3D sensors to measure proximity as well as impact. This Sateco technology is uniquely suited to this application. 2- Smart steering wheel: the moulded silicone force sensor technology can be integrated within the centre of the steering wheel.&nbsp;They provide soft touch input and still enable the airbag to be deployed. 3- Wearable devices: in this example, developed with&nbsp;<a data-attribute-index="6" data-entity-hovercard-id="urn:li:fs_miniCompany:1576237" data-entity-type="MINI_COMPANY" href="https://www.linkedin.com/company/fraunhofer-iao/" target="_blank">Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Engineering IAO</a>, they show how the sensor can be integrated into pagbacks to measure the load that children bear when carrying their bags Join us on 12-13 OCT 2022 to learn more about this super exciting technology and how it can enable 3D soft touch and force sensors &nbsp;<a href="https://www.techblick.com/" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">https://www.techblick.com/</a>Application Info in the Video<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/737506180" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true" style="width: 727px; height: 437px;"></iframe> Technical Info in the Images Below <img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976672664-1.png" style="width: 556px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976685332-2.png" style="width: 523px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976696777-3.png" style="width: 550px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976709296-4.png" style="width: 576px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976725317-5.png" style="width: 590px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"> Meet the Sateco team at TechBlick in Eindhoven on 11-13 OCT 2022<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1659976795489-1.emil-banner-v1+%281%29.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">

Technology for creating 3D force and proximity sensors based on silicone, offering also the ability to customize shape and characteristcs.  Key application is in collaborative robots



3D-shaped mechanically-compliant soft force, pressure, or proximity sensor with ease of integration and good reliability data?

In this episode, we talk about how a group of University of Michigan researchers were inspired by the adaptive immune system found in humans to fortify vulnerable neural networks and a joint effort between Pohang University of Science and Technology and Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology to create electric skin with unmatched performance. As always, you can find these and other interesting &amp; impactful engineering articles on Wevolver.com.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/43d45afd-8dcf-45ad-abb4-02c30cff4eb6?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> <hr>This podcast is sponsored by <a href="https://www2.mouser.com/" id="isPasted" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mouser Electronics</a>. &nbsp; &nbsp;<img src="https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/wevolver-project-images/froala%2F1648558505214-Mouser-sponsor-1-a.jpg" style="width: 766px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib"><hr><h3 id="isPasted">EPISODE NOTES</h3>(2:08) -&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/immune-to-hacks-inoculating-deep-neural-networks-to-thwart-attacks" target="_blank">Immune To Hacks</a>(12:50) - <a href="https://www.wevolver.com/article/a-spectrum-of-spikes-allows-this-novel-electronic-skin-to-sense-touch-like-we-do" target="_blank">Electronics Sense Touch</a><hr id="isPasted">About the podcast:Every day, some of the most innovative universities, companies, and individual technology developers share their knowledge on Wevolver. To ensure we can also provide this knowledge for the growing group of podcast listeners, we started a collaboration with two young engineers, Daniel Scott Mitchell &amp; Farbod Moghaddam who discuss the most interesting content in this podcast series.&nbsp;To learn more about this show, please visit the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" target="_blank">shows page</a>. By following the page, you will get automatic updates by email when a new show is published.Be sure to give us a follow and review on&nbsp;<a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/nl/podcast/the-next-byte/id1548255861?l=en" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Apple</a> podcasts,&nbsp;<a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/6lPPsRtegnivsRUEsQ09R7?si=IPMiah7xT_apJtPjqvXMlA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Spotify</a>, and most of your favorite podcast platforms!

Two prototype position-encoded spike spectrum (PESS) sensors, one showing its ability to flex and confirm to non-linear surfaces, have been proven experimentally.

In this episode, we talk about how a group of researchers were inspired by the adaptive immune system found in humans to fortify vulnerable neural networks and a joint effort between universities to create electric skin with unmatched performance.

Podcast: Immune System Inspired AI & Electric Skin

This article was discussed in our <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte&source=gmail&ust=1648450959370000&usg=AOvVaw3quhsJUxQ1lZ0LmFmeQflQ" href="https://www.wevolver.com/profile/the.next.byte" id="isPasted" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Next Byte podcast</a>.&nbsp;<iframe height="200px" width="100%" frameborder="no" scrolling="no" seamless="" src="https://player.simplecast.com/43d45afd-8dcf-45ad-abb4-02c30cff4eb6?dark=false" class="fr-draggable" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe>The full article will continue below.<hr>Electronic skin, which weaves technology into a flexible and stretchable substrate designed to mimic human skin, offers potential for everything from highly-dexterous robotics to sensory-feedback prosthetics, health monitoring, medical implants, haptics, and more. Current implementations, however, often suffer from high power draw and slow response times.A new approach, based on what a team of researchers at the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH) and the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has termed position-encoded spike spectrum (PESS), could change that &mdash; offering a high-resolution, high-sensitivity artificial tactile system which manages to also be easy to manufacture at scale.<h1>Spiking sensors</h1>The concept is borrowed from biology: The human somatosensory system offers event-driven spike generation, with parallel processing allowing sensations to be felt without delay. While rival approaches aimed at mimicking the same process electronically exist, they center around analog-to-digital converters (ADCs) which limit their resolution and add bulk.What first author Taeyeong Kim and colleagues have developed, by contrast, is a sensory system offering much the same capabilities as the human sense of touch. A mixed ion-electron conductor (MIEC) hosts artificial receptors designed with varying ion relaxation times &mdash; turning touch into a spectrum of spike signals, rather than a single reading.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjQ4MjMzMzc1MjUxLWVza2luMi5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="A diagram showing a position-encoded spike spectrum (PESS) electronic skin sensor, attached to the surface of a human thumb. As the thumb grasps a pencil, a spike spectrum is created - split into characteristic spikes, which offer position information, and auxiliary spikes, which capture pressure.">The PESS sensor system captures both position and pressure by encoding information into a spectrum of spikes which are rapidly decoded and identified.This spike spectrum is key to the responsiveness of the system itself: The relaxation time of each spike can be decoded in real time, its creators claim, to identify exactly where and how the skin is being touched. The overall delay was measured at of 2ms for the auxiliary spikes, which carry pressure information, and 10ms for the characteristic spikes, which offer position.At the same time, the sensor system is surprisingly simple. The prototype was produced using a combination of the MIEC film and PEDOT:PSS as a conducting polymer, applied via spray coating through a patterned stencil mask &mdash; each hole in the mask corresponding to an individual receptor. Layers of silver and gold act as electrodes in the system.<h1>Touchable proof</h1>To prove the concept, the team created a compact prototype measuring 2&times;2cm (around 0.8&times;0.8&quot;) and featuring an impressive 529 individual receptors. Despite this, it required only two signal addressing lines &mdash; a major advantage, its creators claim, over alternatives which rely on time-division multiple access (TMDA) addressing, and a closer analog to the highly-parallel human somatosensory system.As the prototype was touched, the resulting spikes were analyzed by a decoding algorithm in just 2ms. The algorithm, in turn, offers inferred tactile information based on analysis of the characteristic and auxiliary spikes: Position, size, rough shape, and even pressure down to 1.5kPa, all reported with high accuracy.<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gq0xN2U1HDY?&wmode=opaque&rel=0&enablejsapi=1&origin=https://www.wevolver.com" allowfullscreen="" class="fr-draggable" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" data-lf-yt-playback-inspected-kn9eq4roawkarlvp="true"></iframe> In further testing, the team showcased the skin&rsquo;s ability to detect two-dimensional movement, in the form of sensing letters drawn on its surface, and of providing real-time feedback when applied to a robot arm. In these tests, the robot arm was given the task of grasping a metal sphere, rotating, allowing the ball to fall to the bottom of the grip, then shaking it repeatedly &mdash; detecting slippage through the PESS system and tightening its grip instantly in order to prevent the ball from being dropped.<h1>Further work</h1>There&rsquo;s the potential for improvement, too. The team suggests that the application of &ldquo;machine learning-based decoding&rdquo; could allow the PESS system to determine more complicated shapes than is possible using the existing algorithm, while experimental results suggest the possibility of extending the system to omni-directional tactile perception.&ldquo;Converting the external stimuli into spike signals and processing them is a groundbreaking idea that mimics how the human nervous system processes information,&rdquo; says Sung-Phil Kim, UNIST professor and co-corresponding author of the paper detailing the breakthrough.&ldquo;If a new AI model is developed using this spike information encoding method, robot tactile intelligence can be further developed and effectively applied to next-generation semiconductor technologies such as neuromorphic chips.&rdquo;<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNjQ4MjMzMzkxODYyLWVza2luMy5qcGciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 300px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib" alt="A diagram showing the prototype sensor, and the layers from which it is manufactured. From top to bottom: PET, Au, artificial receptors, PET separator, adhesive, Au, Ag/SBS, and silicone elastomer.">The PESS sensors are relatively simple to produce, though work still needs to be done on reliably controlling the thickness of the PEDOT:PSS layer.A sensor variant which integrates four separate sensing systems into a single device, meanwhile, boosts the stationary spatial resolution to 80 receptors per square centimeter (80/cm2) and for dynamic sensing to 132/cm2 &mdash; a figure which the team suggests could be increased still further with improvements to measurement equipment and the sensor&rsquo;s stencil layer.One issue standing in the way of production use, however, is in creating a PEDOT:PSS layer of reliable and repeatable thickness. &ldquo;Unfortunately,&rdquo; the team admits, &ldquo;delicate thickness control of the PEDOT:PSS coating on the target positions for the characteristic receptors was not achieved yet in this study.&rdquo;The team&rsquo;s work has been published in the journal <cite><a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scirobotics.abl5761" target="_blank">Science Robotics</a></cite> under closed-access terms.<h1>Reference</h1>Taeyeong Kim, Jaehun Kim, Insang You, Joosung Oh, Sung-Phil Kim, and Unyong Jeong: <cite>Dynamic tactility by position-encoded spike spectrum, Science Robotics Vol. 7 Iss. 63</cite>. DOI <a href="https://doi.org/10.1126/scirobotics.abl5761" target="_blank">10.1126/scirobotics.abl5761</a>.

Using a highly-scalable approach to creating dense sensor networks, yet requiring only a pair of address lines, these researchers have taken inspiration from the human somatosensory system for a rapid-response sensitive sense of electronic touch.

A spectrum of spikes allows this novel electronic skin to sense touch like we do

Mark R. Cutkosky is the Fletcher Jones Professor in the Dept. of Mechanical Engineering at Stanford University. He joined Stanford in 1985, after working in the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University and as a design engineer at ALCOA, in Pittsburgh, PA. He received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 1985.Cutkosky’s research activities include robotic manipulation and tactile sensing and the design and fabrication of biologically inspired robots. He has graduated 48 Ph.D. students and published extensively in these areas. He consults with companies on robotics and human/computer interaction devices and holds several patents on related technologies. His work has been featured in Discover Magazine, The New York Times, National Geographic, Time Magazine and other publications and has appeared on PBS NOVA, CBS Evening News, and other popular media.Cutkosky’s awards include a Fulbright Faculty Chair (Italy 2002), Fletcher Jones and Charles M. Pigott Chairs at Stanford University, an NSF Presidential Young Investigator award and Times Magazine Best Innovations (2006) for the Stickybot gecko-inspired robot. He is a fellow of ASME and IEEE and a member of Sigma Xi.<h1 dir="ltr">Soft Robotics With Mark Cutkosky&nbsp;</h1>Marwa ElDiwiny, host of the Soft Robotics podcast, interviews Mark about his work in soft robotics.<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed-podcast/episode/6237w6uZUttAH7nW4lhAPf" width="100%" height="232" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" class="fr-draggable"></iframe>

Cutkosky applies analyses, simulations, and experiments to the design and control of robotic hands, tactile sensors, and devices for human/computer interaction. In manufacturing, his work focuses on design tools for rapid prototyping.

Soft Robotics With Mark Cutkosky "Gecko Climbing Robots"

The ability to integrate location and movement sensors with wireless technology in sports equipment is revolutionizing the way athletic performance can be monitored, analyzed and improved.<h2>Smart sports equipment</h2>Small-sized wireless sports tracking solutions with long battery life now enable previously impossible integration. Balls, bats, pucks, boots, helmets, and other gear play host to compact wireless tech without affecting the characteristics or performance of the equipment. In a world where “marginal gains” make the difference between winning and losing, wireless sports tracking is now mandatory. That goes some way to explaining why the industry is proving so lucrative; industry analyst Grand View Research expects the sector to register a CAGR of 20.3 percent from 2018 (when it was valued at $9.8 billion) up to 2025.Today’s built-in sensors or technology track the precise location and movement of the sports equipment in action, analyze the data and then forward it via a short-range wireless link to an accompanying app on the user’s smartphone or a web-based dashboard on their laptop.One example is pitchLogic, a baseball with a ‘brain’ that tracks its position and movement to provide critical data about each pitch. Developed by sports technology start-up, F5 Sports, the Bluetooth LE-enabled smart ball uses built-in sensors and complex proprietary algorithms to analyze the pitch in mid-air, taking approximately 75,000 measurements as the ball travels. Clay Holmes, a pitcher for Major League Baseball (MLB) team the Pittsburgh Pirates, has credited the unique data and insights provided by the pitchLogic system with helping him to discover the optimal body and arm slot positions for successful pitches, particularly in relation to his renowned ‘sinker’, a type of fastball characterized by significant downward and horizontal movement.<h2>Advanced sports training wearable</h2>Wireless tech isn’t only helping improve ball game skills. German researchers at the <a href="https://www.sport.tu-dortmund.de/sport/index.php" rel="noopener" target="_blank">TU Dortmund’s Institute for Sport and Sport Science</a> (including Dr. Marcus Schmidt, Researcher Institute for Sport and Sport Science, and Prof. Dr. Thomas Jaitner, TU Dortmund), in conjunction with Kaiserslautern-based tech developer <a href="https://www.wille-engineering.com/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Wille Engineering</a>, for example, have launched the <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-60639-2_1" rel="noopener" target="_blank">SpoSeNs 2.0 Professional Wearable</a>, a lightweight, ankle-worn device for reliable and accurate analysis of an athlete’s movement and biomechanical parameters.<img src="https://images.wevolver.com/eyJidWNrZXQiOiJ3ZXZvbHZlci1wcm9qZWN0LWltYWdlcyIsImtleSI6ImZyb2FsYS8xNTkzMDA5OTY4Mzg4LTEyNDE1MTE2MS5wbmciLCJlZGl0cyI6eyJyZXNpemUiOnsid2lkdGgiOjk1MCwiZml0IjoiY292ZXIifX19" style="width: 788px;" class="fr-fic fr-dib">In comparison to a regular fitness wearable, SpoSeNs 2.0 is designed to provide greater precision and more comprehensive data to enhance sports training and competitive performance. The solution can be used to collect and analyze detailed sprint, jump and hurdle metrics/insights which previously required complex and often expensive system installations—including light barriers, force plates, or video cameras—as well as frequent recalibration. For example, the platform’s proprietary step-detection algorithm determines the athlete’s ground contact time or step frequency in real-time.“In professional training and competition, every millisecond counts,” says Sebastian Wille, Founder of Wille Engineering. “In sprint and hurdle disciplines, for example, the athlete needs to know the point in a race when they start to fatigue, and real-time feedback is crucial to ensure suitable adaptions can be made during conditioning training.“SpoSeNs 2.0 is a universal solution for various sports applications; new use cases could be found in different sports including volleyball, beach volleyball, badminton, boxing, and horse riding,” Wille says.<h2>Nordic power</h2>The SpoSeNs 2.0 Professional Wearable is built round Nordic Semiconductor’s nRF52840 advanced multiprotocol SoC. In addition to the SoC, the product comprises a sensor node, a nine-axis IMU, and a separate three-axis, high-G accelerometer. Supported by the SoC’s powerful microprocessor and large memory, SpoSeNs 2.0 records the wearer’s movement data then processes the raw data in ‘real-time’. Using the SoC-enabled low latency Bluetooth LE connectivity, the data is then sent to a paired smartphone or tablet. The trainer can access live performance information and graphic-based analytics directly through an associated Android app.<h2>The future of sports tracking</h2>“Technologies like SpoSeNs 2.0 can take sports training and therefore performance for professional athletes to a new level,” Wille says. “At the same time, it’s also entirely possible for such a system to be used by all classes of athletes.”He’s right. ‘Smart’ sports equipment and wearables have the potential to hugely impact the future of sports tracking and performance analytics for all. And OEMs in this space will be able to boost their bottom lines just as competitors raise their aspirations.When just about every performance metric imaginable can be accurately tracked using a commercially viable, cost-effective, and readily available wireless tech solution, skills, techniques, and ultimately the performance levels of millions of athletes around the world will improve. Thanks to wireless tech, perfect practice could soon be standard practice.<hr>This article was first published on Nordic's&nbsp;<a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"></a><a href="https://blog.nordicsemi.com/getconnected?utm_campaign=2021%20wevolver" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Get Connected Blog</a>.

The ability to integrate location and movement sensors with wireless technology in sports equipment is revolutionizing the way athletic performance can be monitored, analyzed and improved.

Wireless solutions take sports tracking to new level

Flexible electronics isn&rsquo;t a new technology, but it has achieved a remarkable progress over the past years and has become increasingly important to many sectors such as consumer electronics, automotive, retail and healthcare. <a href="https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/idtechex-global-research-report-on-flexible-printed-and-organic-electronics-2019-2029-forecasts-players--opportunities-300799688.html" target="_blank">IDTechEx analysts forecast</a> that the total market for printed, flexible and organic electronics will grow from $31.7 billion in 2018 to $77.3 billion in 2029.&nbsp;Flexible electronics is a technology that allows you to build electronic circuits on flexible substrates thus making them bendable and stretchable. It enables new product paradigms that aren&rsquo;t possible with conventional semiconductors and glass substrates. Here we explore some of the attributes of flexible electronics that make this tech attractive to product designers and consumers alike.<h2>Flexible</h2>Transistors can be made from either inorganic or organic materials, or a mix of both. FlexEnable fabricates transistors using organic materials which replace the silicon and hard ceramic materials with soft, carbon-based materials. The organic thin-film transistors (OTFTs) we use are known as&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flexenable.com/services/otft-materials/" target="_blank" title="FlexiOM™">FlexiOM&trade;</a> - they are inherently flexible and have greater performance than amorphous silicon. These high-performance OTFTs can be processed at temperatures lower than 100&deg;C allowing for the use of&nbsp;lower cost thin film substrates thus enabling flexible devices.While flexible electronics have many applications, at FlexEnable we are primarily focused on flexible displays. Yet, our flexible OTFT platform can drive&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flexenable.com/technology/flexible-sensor-arrays/" target="_blank">flexible sensors</a> and other flexible devices. This platform has enabled the development of <a href="https://www.flexenable.com/technology/flexible-olcd/" target="_blank">flexible organic LCD</a>s&nbsp;(OLCDs) that can bend down to 10mm and be scaled to large areas making them suitable for a range of applications including automotive, consumer electronics, smart home appliances and digital signage.<h2>Light and thin</h2>Display thickness and weight are especially important features for applications that require large area displays such as automotive and digital signage. Using a flexible substrate (instead of glass) in combination with organic transistors helps make the whole stack very thin. For example at FlexEnable we use low-cost bio-based substrates such as TAC (tri acetyl cellulose) which are just a fraction of a tenth of a millimetre thick. As a result the entire OLCD is just 0.3mm thick (without the backlight). Moreover, the thinness and flexibility of&nbsp;<a href="https://www.flexenable.com/newsroom/breakthrough-in-glass-free-olcd-technology-enables-bezel-less-displays-for-notebooks/" target="_blank">OLCD enables bezel-less displays</a> through curved edges and folded borders. This brings huge value in applications like notebooks and tablets where borderless means bigger displays for the same sized device. <a href="https://www.flexenable.com/Blog/why-certain-plastic-substrates-are-an-ideal-alternative-to-glass-for-lcd/" target="_blank">The extreme thinness of TAC substrates also brings optical advantages to OLCD.</a><h2>Unbreakable</h2>One property of flexible electronics which deserves to be highlighted is their robustness. This makes a great difference for applications such as wearables, notebooks and other consumer electronics which traditionally feature glass-based displays or sensors. Incorporating an unbreakable, glass-free active matrix display could become a unique selling point for consumers.<h2>Cost advantage</h2>The processes and materials for manufacturing flexible electronics differ, but the aim is to make them lower cost than conventional electronics. <a href="https://www.flexenable.com/blog/enabling-flexible-electronics-from-the-roll/" target="_blank">Roll to roll printing</a> has been long considered the ultimate approach to the cost-effective manufacture of electronics over large and small areas. It will remove the waste of materials currently incurred in factories and will drive product costs down. However, there are a few steps to overcome before roll to roll printing becomes the norm.At FlexEnable we have developed a practical approach to the cost-effective manufacture of flexible electronics for flexible displays and sensors. Our processes are compatible with existing flat panel display lines meaning that all of the existing equipment can be reused. A maximum processing temperature below 100&deg;C allows for the use of&nbsp;lower cost flexible substrates (e.g. TAC) and minimises&nbsp;distortion (improves yield), whilst enabling a low cost, high yield method of handling flexible substrates.<h2>Innovation</h2>For brands and designers to keep innovating and developing next generation products, they need tools and components that will enable them to do this. Flexible electronics allow the development of flexible components such as flexible displays and sensors which remove form factor constraints and give designers creative freedom. A typical example is the automotive industry where designers are already thinking outside the box by reinventing the car interior with the help of flexible displays. French company Novares, for example, has demonstrated how flexible display technology can help improve design and safety by integrating conformable OLCDs supplied by FlexEnable&nbsp;into the interior of their demo car&nbsp;<a href="https://www.novaresteam.com/our-solutions/novacar-2-an-open-innovation-lab/" target="_blank">Nova Car 2</a>.

Flexible electronics isn’t a new technology, but it has achieved a remarkable progress over the past years and has become increasingly important to many sectors such as consumer electronics, automotive, retail and healthcare.

Five benefits of flexible electronics for displays and sensors

Infrared spectroscopy is the benchmark method for detecting and analyzing organic compounds. But it requires complicated procedures and large, expensive instruments, making device miniaturization challenging and hindering its use for some industrial and medical applications and for data collection out in the field, such as for measuring pollutant concentrations. Furthermore, it is fundamentally limited by low sensitivities and therefore requires large sample amounts.However, scientists at EPFL&rsquo;s School of Engineering and at Australian National University (ANU) have developed a compact and sensitive nanophotonic system that can identify a molecule&rsquo;s absorption characteristics without using conventional spectrometry. The scientists have already used their system to detect polymers, pesticides and organic compounds. What&rsquo;s more, it is compatible with CMOS technology.Their system consists of an engineered surface covered with hundreds of tiny sensors called metapixels, which can generate a distinct bar code for every molecule that the surface comes into contact with. These bar codes can be massively analyzed and classified using advanced pattern recognition and sorting technology such as artificial neural networks. This research &ndash; which sits at the crossroads of physics, nanotechnology and big data &ndash; has been published in&nbsp;Science.Translating molecules into bar codes The chemical bonds in organic molecules each have a specific orientation and vibrational mode. It influences the way molecules absorb light, giving each one a unique &ldquo;signature.&rdquo; Infrared spectroscopy detects whether a given molecule is present in a sample by seeing if the sample absorbs light rays at the molecule&rsquo;s signature frequencies. However, such analyses require lab instruments with a hefty size and price tag.The pioneering system developed by the EPFL scientists is both highly sensitive and capable of being miniaturized; it uses nanostructures that can trap light on the nanoscale and thereby provide very high detection levels for samples on the surface. &ldquo;The molecules we want to detect are nanometric in scale, so bridging this size gap is an essential step,&rdquo; says Hatice Altug, head of EPFL&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://bios.epfl.ch/" target="_blank">BioNanoPhotonic Systems Laboratory</a> and a coauthor of the study.The system&rsquo;s nanostructures are grouped into what are called metapixels so that each one resonates at a different frequency. When a molecule comes into contact with the surface, the way the molecule absorbs light changes the behavior of all the metapixels it touches.&ldquo;Importantly, the metapixels are arranged in such a way that different vibrational frequencies are mapped to different areas on the surface,&rdquo; says Andreas Tittl, lead author of the study.This creates a pixelated map of light absorption that can be translated into a molecular bar code &ndash; all without using a spectrometer.&ldquo;Thanks to our sensors&rsquo; unique optical properties, we can generate bar codes even with broadband light sources and detectors,&rdquo; says Aleksandrs Leitis, a coauthor of the study.There are a number of potential applications for this new system. &ldquo;For instance, it could be used to make portable medical testing devices that generate bar codes for each of the biomarkers found in a blood sample,&rdquo; says Dragomir Neshev, another coauthor of the study.Artificial intelligence could be used in conjunction with this new technology to create and process a whole library of molecular bar codes for compounds ranging from protein and DNA to pesticides and polymers. That would give researchers a new tool for quickly and accurately spotting miniscule amounts of compounds present in complex samples.

A new system developed at EPFL can detect and analyze molecules with very high precision and without needing bulky equipment. It opens the door to large-scale, image-based detection of materials aided by artificial intelligence. The research has been published in Science.

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