Flexible, controllable "robotic skin" modules can be attached to any suitable object, providing an obedient robot to perform the required tasks.
Developers from Yale University have presented a technology for creating removable "robo-skin" elements that allow you to turn ordinary objects into controllable universal machines. The new OmniSkins project, created by the team of Professor Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, is featured in Science Robotics.
Each OmniSkins robotic skin element is an independent, flexible polymer or fabric movable module with integrated sensors and actuators. The drive can be implemented on the basis of heating coils made of nitinol - a material with shape memory - reversibly changing with increasing temperature; or based on pneumatic pockets that are filled with air on command. By itself, such an element is universal and can be fixed on the surface of ordinary objects, using them as a supporting "skeleton" and turning them into robotic devices for one purpose or another.
This turns the project from simple fun into a promising direction for the development of robotic systems that not only perform a predetermined set of functions, but adapt to unforeseen actions and situations. Demonstrating the capabilities of the OmniSkins robotic skin, the scientists showed how, with its help, an elastic cylinder begins to move in the manner of a worm, the shirt helps maintain correct posture, and the toy grip becomes a controlled manipulator.
The authors emphasize that the technology was developed jointly with NASA and in the future can become an important element of the work of astronauts on the Moon and Mars, providing them with obedient robots to perform the most unexpected tasks. Especially if the developers manage to improve the manufacturing technology of OmniSkins so that all the necessary components can be simply printed on a 3D printer if necessary.
Sergey Vasiliev