Robotic Sense of Touch 56
Aryabhata writes "As per a BBC article, US scientists have created a device that could one day pave the way for robotic hands mimicking human touch. The research team from University of Nebraska in Lincoln hopes to apply this to aid surgery by allowing surgeons to feel the tissue they are operating on. This could help surgeons in distinguishing cancerous or abnormal tissue etc. To demonstrate the device the scientists tried the instrument on a one cent coin and the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty."
Excellent.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Just to get this out of the way (Score:2)
Official joke thread (Score:5, Funny)
Since this appears to be the official joke thread for the article, I'll throw in my two cents:
the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty.
I'm glad they've got a device that can still detect some of our liberty. I was starting to get worried.
--MarkusQ
Continue to worry! (Score:1)
Re:Official joke thread (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Excellent.... (Score:2)
no means no (Score:2)
Re:no means no (Score:5, Insightful)
Because "pain" protects you from yourself damaging your body [wikipedia.org]
If you can't feel there's something wrong and abnormal with your body (broken leg, biting on tongue, finger stuck in a blender, ...) you wont act to protect it. Not damaging yourself wouldn't be a "reflex" anymore, but a contious process with not always the highest priority. Like an Interrupt request versus an API-call.
Re:no means no (Score:2)
Re:no means no (Score:2)
I agree. Creating a robotic clone of a human isn't really what should be attempted as humans' nature is quite competitive and dominating.
AI with a sense of "self" and with an ego could give quite disturbing scenario's.
Re:no means no (Score:1)
Re:no means no (Score:2)
Actually it's number three according to Maslow [wikipedia.org].
Re:no means no (Score:2)
Transferring Touch? (Score:1)
Re:Transferring Touch? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Transferring Touch? (Score:2)
This array was in work in the lab I in which I did my PhD, and has more recently become viable. It can mimic, to the best extent possible, spatial inputs to the skin, in a fairly incredible virtual reality kind of way, and is a great research tool. But it is a HUGE device made to provide good control over a single fingertip of skin.
Not for robots, really (Score:2, Interesting)
In other words, it won't do anything for a sexbot, but the implications for the phone sex industry are profound!
Re:Not for robots, really (Score:1)
I thought it couldn't get any worse than when my dreamworld came crashing down when I got busted jerking off as a teenager, now someone has to go & ruin phone sex for me too...
Re:Not for robots, really (Score:2)
I'd be more interested in the autonomous robotics (Score:3, Interesting)
AI is the single largest problem with making robots that act autonomously, but there are other issues as well, and sensory data is one of them. Humans, and other animals, depend on a variety of senses to interact with our environment - ranging from sonar to sight to smell (depending on species). An individual is severly limited with one of their senses lost/reduced.
We could build a robot with sight easily - camera technology is getting better and better. Ditto sound recording, and even interpretation (voice recognition for example has come a long way). Gyroscopes can be used to give a sense of balance. It wouldn't be that difficult to add sonar or radar to that list, and smell we can probably skip for most applications. But touch is too useful not to have. For any device that moves independantly, being able to feel where it's putting its various body parts is potentially vital.
How important is our sense of touch? Hands are useless without feedback as to where we're putting them. Imagine the advantages for a robot that can feel different surfaces (and determine what they're made of, how sturdy they are, etc). I suspect a fair number of problems with pathfinding could be solved by giving the robot instructions as to what surfaces will and won't support it's weight. Telling a vehicle sized robot to stick to the asphalt would be helpful, especially when you consider the alternatives. It'd be nice to be able to tell a bot meant for cleaning not to throw away money, or to differentiate between recycleable materials and regular garbage, or to avoid scrubbing the carpet with tile cleaner...
Of course I'm probably getting ahead of the technology here - this sort of application won't exist for a long time yet. But hey, a geek can dream.
What will touch tell you (Score:2)
this isn't all that useful for 'sturdy' checking.. only experience can teach you that.
a better method for surface detection under a gripping apendage would be a small rubber disk (fingertip) on the other side of which is a prism-- with a small amount of oil inbetween.. bounce a light off the disk and a camera on the other side.. perfect surface detection.
Re:What will touch tell you (Score:2)
All you need to do is either A) Give the robot learning capability and let it make mistakes (which is hard, but leads to more versatile behaviour), or B) Code for every object it is likely to come in contact
Re:What will touch tell you (Score:2)
Re:What will touch tell you (Score:2)
With such feedback picking up an egg safely is easy. Without it picking up the egg is nearly impossible. Experiments have been done in which the skin but not the proprioceptors are anesthetized. Even simple manual tasks become very difficult.
We can live without vision or hearing, but we cannot live without touch.
Way insightful. Roboticists have wanted this. (Score:2)
This has been one of the aching needs of robotics for as long as I can remember. Crude force modulation sort of works for the first two, but is hopeless for the last.
Forgetting something? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:3, Interesting)
OTOH, if you could tie into your peripheral nervous system, you'd have a prosthetic that not only had a sense of touch, but that could be controlled like a limb as well. The parts of your brain are already there to move it, so as long as you were born with the limb in question, you could probably train a prosthetic easily enough.
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:1)
I'm not sure you would even need to be born with the limb, those experiments with the monkeys where they controlled electronic arms with thought worked out ok. I guess they did establish control over the
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:2)
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:1)
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:2, Interesting)
TFA speaks only about touch->image conversion, and i doubt they have anything that can actually mimic any given texture under the surgeons hand.
The prosthetics we have now (if you have the cash) are able to react to nerves to some extent - forcing your arm to move, or grab an object.
But i think that making a interface that actually lets you feel what the computer is telling you is a different story.
And im talking tens of years of development.
We are getting in
Re:Forgetting something? (Score:1)
One cent coin? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:One cent coin? (Score:1)
They're equal in my mind.
They contain the same number of syllables.
I'm sure a linguist could provide a more accurate comparison, but that's close enough for me.
Re:One cent coin? (Score:3, Informative)
The article quoted was a BBC article, and a penny in the UK has no 'liberty' upon it.
A "penny" in Britain doesn't show Lincoln (Score:2)
Cool... (Score:2, Funny)
No iron handy in the 1800's huh? (Score:4, Funny)
It's too bad the mint couldn't have ironed his clothes before casting him in metal...
Robotic Massage (Score:1)
Limited touch.. (Score:1)
Why do they limit it to the sensitivity of a human fingertip ?
Re:Limited touch.. (Score:1)
Re:not so Limited touch.. (Score:2)
Re:not so Limited touch.. (Score:2)
Actually humans can scan a surface statically, there is just more information available if a scan is used.
Your index finger can detect spatial form on a surface with a 2 mm range. You can detect surface asperities as small as a 4-5 microns in scanned touch, and detect vibrations of 1-2 microns at 250 Hz.
This
Question... (Score:2)
I want to send a package to a good old friend of mine.
Regards,
Hannibal
Applications (Score:3, Interesting)
Not that new... (Score:1)
Important medical advancement (Score:1)
good for androids (Score:1)