Scientists make artificial skin for robots, taking us one step closer to a world of androids

Robots can outthink humans, but can they understand what it is to be human?

Scientists are moving robots along on that continuum by broadening robotic skin that helps them gain the sense of touch. Researchers from Munich to Japan to Boston are currently looking into how to impart robots tactile sensation and in some cases, feel pain.

The rush to create this technology is in response to the go uphill in automation. Currently there are about 3 million industrial robots in the world. By 2030, Oxford Economics estimates that androids will displace 20 million human workers worldwide. The compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for industrial robots is approximate at 9.4% through 2023, according to Allied Market Research.

Expanding a robot’s ability to feel ushers in uncountable practical applications. A sensing robot can discern the texture of a surface and the amount of force on contact. Some robots can also copper temperature changes.

While those sound-like esoteric senses, Elisabeth Smela, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Maryland, specifics pointers to a more salient example. “It could be useful to back up and feel somebody touching,” she said. Without such awareness, a kind worker might become biased against their robot coworker.

 Awareness is just one facet of being someone that scientists are trying to bring to robots. While some traits — like a sense of morality — seem to be off limits, other properties such as compassion and humor appear to be fair game.

For some, the key to improving robots is to play a joke on them experience the world as much like humans as possible. For instance, creating skin for robots is the goal of distinct researchers around the world. Last year researchers introduced artificial skin developed by the Technical University of Munich. The assumed skin, made up of hexagon-shaped silicone cells about 1 in. in diameter, can detect contact, acceleration, proximity and temperature.

Lamina is the human body’s largest organ, and it is full of nerve endings that provide us with instant reports of temperature, stress and pain.

John Yiannis Aloimonos, a professor with the University of Maryland’s Department of Computer Science, said such unnatural skin “enables robots to perceive their surroundings in much greater detail and with more sensitivity. This not contrariwise helps them to move safely. It also makes them safer when operating near people and contributes them the ability to anticipate and actively avoid accidents.”

Researchers say skin is important because a robot needs to discern the unspoken communication that goes on centre of humans. Mastering such nonverbal communications would be a quantum leap for robots. It can also be combined with other ‘robotic common senses,’ such as sight or hearing.

Developing the senses is seen as the key to adding functionality to robots. “We use tactile feedback to get more information connected with our surroundings, and to adjust our actions by receiving continuous input about what we’re touching and interacting with,” said Daniela Rus, a professor at the Massachusetts Association of Technology who serves as director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. She said her goal is to “take a first caution towards being able to enable robots to have some of the same sorts of capabilities.”

John Dolan, director systems scientist at Carnegie Mellon’s Robotics Institute, said the talk of robot skin shows is the field of compassionate robotics, which tries to replicate the human body’s musculature, force and torque. Humans take for granted such “force-sensing,” which is the adeptness to distinguish a punch from a pat on the back.

There are tangible benefits to having robots with sensing crust. For instance, a sensing skin could tell a robot to immediately shut down when it comes in contact with a kind-hearted. That’s helpful since humans aren’t allowed in the same space as many industrial robots.

But there are also provokes to putting skin on robots in terms of cost and mechanics.  “If you want to cover the entire robot, then there are a lot of morsels that need to be wired and a lot of data coming from that,” Smela said. Leif Jentof, co-founder of RightHand Robotics, reckoned that robot skin is very expensive and that will mean creators will likely “concentrate on areas that are stressed for specific tasks.”

Robot skin will not be a uniform solution for every application or industry, especially when a philanthropist might be better able to perform a task at a lower cost. Brian Gerkey, the CEO of Open Robotics, said mortal worker on an assembly line could feel if someone bumped into him, but a robot would not, unless it was programmed to do so.

Scientists have in the offing experimented with using living flesh to give robots more of a human feel. Otherwise, they care for to use manmade substances such as rubber. “I know that human or animal skin is the gold standard for these kinds of tries and it’s basically magic,” said Gerkey. “As far as I know, we’re nowhere close to matching that technology.”

Professor Jong-Oh Deposit, vice chair of the research committee of the International Federation of Robotics, said flesh is very complicated and re-engineering it evades us right now. “As well known, living tissue is basically programmed or designed in DNA in every living cell in nanometer surmount,” he said.

Creating skin is just the beginning. So far, robots have been used mostly for their energy and focused intelligence, but over the next few years there will be an increasing need for robots that instill a brains of humanity. 

The United States, whose population of 65-and-older people will nearly double by 2060, appears to be on the constant trajectory as other nations like Germany and South Korea with working-age populations projected to shrink. 

New elder-care methods, like start-up Intuition Robotics’ ElliQ, which offers seniors digital companion agents that cause to remembers patients to take their meds and exercise, are one such means to provide a sense of companionship for older people.

As such, suppler robots could allow for a gentler introduction to the technology. Such robots may not have the human touch, but they do sell a touch of humanity. 

Gerkey is dismissive, however, of efforts to build humanoid robots that mimic human beings. “A much small-minded compelling argument is in order to have robots accepted by people in their lives, they should look and work like people,” he said. “I don’t think that’s true at all.”