The new “skin,” fashioned at the National Natural Science Foundation of China, is self-powered and transparent. The smart skin is also fairly simple to manufacture less expensive than other types in development.
To improve the function of robots one area that is in need of development is “touch.” Touch is sometimes overlooked as way of interpreting the environment, when compared with vision and sound. However, in order to boost awareness of robots, touch is a key aspect.
To crack the optimal ‘smart’ skin, researchers have been toying with different materials. Sponsorship from the National High-Tech Research and Development Program of China has allowed research scientist Professor Haixia Zhang to make a significant breakthrough.
Zhnag has managed to boost the sensitive of artificial skin through increasing the number of electrodes within the material layers. Previously this has been prohibitive in terms of cost and technologically complex in terms of the number of electrodes that can be fitted. Here the more electrodes fitted, the greater the difficulty in powering them due to the need for external batteries.
To overcome these obstacles, Zhnag developed a new type of skin created from of ultra-thin plastic films. These skins require only four electrodes and maintain a high level of sensitivity. The electrodes are constructed from silver nanowires. The skin is designed so that each movement generates mechanical energy and this is transformed into an electrical current. This means the skin is self-powering and does not need an external power source.
In tests the skin was so sensitive that it could detect (akin to ‘feeling’) a honeybee flying close by. Such technology is not only important for robots; it also helps with the development of human prosthetics, as would be used with amputees.
The research has been published in the journal ACS Nano. It is titled “Self-Powered Analogue Smart Skin.”
In an alternative application, Stamford University researchers have produced a skin that is composed of two layers. Layer one is a sensing mechanism; and layer two, positioned underneath, is an electronic circuit that sends signals, rather like Morse code, to nerve cells in the brain.
