Create smart foam that gives robots a “sense of touch”

In 1999, ‘The Bicentennial Man’ surprises, not only with the performance of Robin Williams, but by masterfully representing the question that has been hovering in people’s heads since the first contact with modern robotics. : Will robots be able to replicate human capabilities?

In the film, which is a cinematic representation of the eponymous tale by Isaac Asimov, Andrew (played by Williams) begins his life like any robot: made of metal and nuts. However, at the end of the film, the protagonist ends his days transformed into a human being, after a series of adaptations to his robotic body that brought him closer to his goal every day.

One of the most important details of the film takes place in the laboratory of his friend, who, in one of his interventions, manages to place human prostheses that could actually feel. Of course, even though science was already well advanced for the film’s release 22 years ago, it was still a utopia to believe that robots could assimilate human behavior so much that they could even have a sense of touch. .

Well, it looks like this “crazy” idea might now be a reality. In recent days, scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have announced the invention of a smart foam which, according to a statement from the institution, “It can give machines more than a human touch.”

“Called artificially innervated foam, or AiFoam, the new material, which is soft and looks like a sponge, imitates the sense of human touch, can detect nearby objects without touching them, and only repairs when damagedAdds the letter.

According to the university, the people responsible for achieving this robotic feat are researchers from the NUS Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the Institute for Healthcare Innovation and Technology (iHealthtech), led by Assistant Professor Benjamin Tee. The scientist headed a group that worked for over two years on a material that almost exactly simulates human touch; and it seems that with AiFoam this goal has been achieved.

“We want to show that it is possible to reproduce the sense of human touch in a robot, which opens a new paradigm in the interaction between man and machine for future applicationsTee said.

Although there are currently several materials that can “sense” the touch or proximity of an object, none of the electronic skins can “sense the direction of movement of adjacent objects, because it requires more complex detection skills”.

So NUS decided to experiment with a very sensitive but tough material, like fluoropolymer (a substance similar to Teflon), which in combination with a surfactant and many microscopic metal particles resulted in AiFoam.

With this new material it is not only possible to detect much more precisely the contact or approach of a human finger, for example, but also robots can (literally) sense the direction an object or substance will take when it comes in contact with the foam.

“To mimic sensitive nerve endings in human skin, the researchers inserted thin cylindrical electrodes below the surface of the foam. They are able to sense the direction of the applied force, not just the amount of force. This would allow robots to better understand human intentions, or know that an object in contact is about to slide, so that they can react more quickly and in a more appropriate way ”, indicates the study.

In terms of strength, as mentioned above, the foam has the advantage that it can polymerize with the help of the surfactant. In addition, can be stretched to at least 230% of its length without breaking. All of these benefits make this new technology a hope for use in prosthetics so that people can feel like they have a real limb.

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