Inexpensive tactile sensing technology builds on tiny
barometer chips that are widely available
What use is a hand without nerves, that can't tell what it's
holding? A hand that lifts a can of soda to your lips, but inadvertently tips
or crushes it in the process?
Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied
Sciences (SEAS) have developed a very inexpensive tactile sensor for robotic
hands that is sensitive enough to turn a brute machine into a dextrous
manipulator.
Designed by researchers in the Harvard Biorobotics
Laboratory at SEAS, the sensor, called TakkTile, is intended to put what would
normally be a high-end technology within the grasp of commercial inventors,
teachers, and robotics enthusiasts.