Touchence Bring Shokkaku Cube - World's First Flexible Touch Sensor For Robots

Humanoids never get close to the human beings, thanks to the hard metal body they possess. Many attempts have been made to deal with this issue and Touchence, a Tokyo University venture, has come up with what looks to be a good solution to this problem. It is the Shokkaku Cube, a soft, flexible touch sensor that can take measurements in 3D. When these sensors are fitted in the robot, it will get rid of the metallic feelings and the robot’s touch will feel “more human like”. The best of touch sensors, today, can function only in 2D. These 2D sensors are of not much use in robotics. A completely hard and flat surface is not reliable enough for the robot. So the new invention, Shokkaku Cube can give foam like surface that can be touched, pinched, squeezed and can change shape, as a result varying pressure can be applied to it. So it can measure variations in all three directions.

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The structure is made from soft and flexible polyurethane. It allows multidimensional tactile sending function. It can distinguish between different levels of touch like stroke and pinch. An added advantage of using this is that the number of sensors per area can be minimized due to less non-sensing area flexibility. Most important aspect of this sensor is the fact that during the operation, it can change shape but will still remain soft. Touchence demonstrated this sensor for a robotic foot. For a robotic foot, if a hard 2D sensor is used it may not have the grip on the surface and may not be able to collect enough information about the surface. But if these 3D sensors are used then it will give the robot enough grip over the surface and the robot can also sense the surface properly and transfer the weight so that better balance is got. It also allows the robots to hold on to items and lift articles with more gentleness.

The working of these sensors is so simple and is based on simple optical laws. Light, which is sent from the bottom, is detected on the top. There are five sensors, so 5 output signals are got and depending on their intensities the area of contact and the pressure can be calculated.

The applications of these sensors are numerous. It can be used in therapeutic robots, robotic toys, as an input device for virtual reality games, detecting various motions, etc.

Check out the video:



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