Several news organizations have picked up a NASA press story about a new type of robot skin. The NASA research is being done by Vladimir Lumelsky at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Lumelsky has created a flexible skin with a matrix of embedded infrared sensors. Before the skin is used in the real world, the researchers hope to increase the sensor density and find a way of manufacturing the skin using a printing process. We reported on other researchers working on pressure sensitive robot skin and elastic metal skin, and polymer tactile sensor skin. The strangest we've seen, was skin designed for manikins that sweats and measures the moisture resistence of nearby fabric.
It is good news for tactile recognition in advanced humanoid robotics.
This kind of rich tactile sense will be needed is robots are to operate safely in homes and offices.
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