SNU researchers developed electronic skins that wirelessly activate fully soft robots by Staff Writers Seoul, South Korea (SPX) Jun 25, 2018
A research team of Seoul National University (Co-senior authors: Professor Yongtaek Hong, Jaeha Kim, and Kyu-Jin Cho) has developed a skin-like electronic system that is soft, thin, lightweight and can wirelessly activate soft robots through a simple lamination process. They developed an electronic skin (e-skin) pair as a two-part, wireless soft driving system based on a fully printable "stretchable hybrid electronics" approach. One part is the e-skin for input sensing at a human side, and the other for activating soft robots. The e-skins are soft (same material for the target robot body), thin (<1 mm), and lightweight (~0.8 g) and also feature the spatially fragmented circuit configuration with a slew of miniature IC components (standard dimension, <1.5 mm + 1.5 mm). Therefore, they can be stretched and conformed onto the dynamic surface like human skin or soft robots. The electronic functionality of this system is "wireless inter-skin communication". The e-skin pair can perform wireless communication of the four-state control signal at a distance of more than 5m, and the embedded encoding mechanism makes the inter-skin communication noise-tolerant. The proposed e-skins can be softly, compactly, and reversibly assembled into soft robot frames to activate muscle-like soft actuators without interfering with their soft motions. Benefits of this e-skin-mediated soft robotic assembly include coadaptive movement that helps the robot pass through and/or operate in highly confined spaces, whose cross section is even smaller than the robot size. Furthermore, the proposed e-skin pair and corresponding wireless inter-skin communication concept can wirelessly activate multiple types of soft robots through reversible assembly of the e-skins. The researchers said, "Soft robots have great advantages in organically integrating every robot components without rigid boundaries, but current soft robotic designs still rely on rigid components mostly in driving parts. This e-skin opens a new avenue for soft robotic assembly. It is soft, thin, and light enough for a robot not to be perceptible, but it can activate the robot as 'a driving skin'." The research will be published in the 18th issue of Science Robotics on May 30, 2018.
A fast, low-voltage actuator for soft and wearable robotics Santa Barbara CA (SPX) Jun 18, 2018 In the world of robotics, soft robots are the new kids on the block. The unique capabilities of these automata are to bend, deform, stretch, twist or squeeze in all the ways that conventional rigid robots cannot. Today, it is easy to envision a world in which humans and robots collaborate - in close proximity - in many realms. Emerging soft robots may help to ensure that this can be done safely, and in a way that syncs to human environments or even interfaces with humans themselves. "Some of ... read more
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |