DEVELOPMENT OF ROBOTIC SKIN TECHNOLOGY

[Anchor Lead]

Korean engineers have developed a robotic skin technology that allows the skin to feel touch and recover from damages. This technology is expected to improve prosthetic limbs and accelerate the commercialization of humanoid robots.

[Pkg]

The area on the robotic skin turns red on the screen when pressed down with a finger. The screen also shows where the arm is grabbed. Made with pliable materials like hydrogel and silicon, the robotic arm’s skin has a soft surface and is capable of absorbing shock. This is the robotic skin with tactile sensing technology developed by Professor Kim Jung’s team at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. The robotic skin is soft like human skin and capable of detecting various touches like pressing, grabbing and stroking. The sensory measuring points under the skin detect vibration and pressure, allowing the robotic skin to sense a variety of touches just like humans. This technology is exceptional because the sensing scope of the measuring points is much wider than the existing touch screen method. This means that it takes only a few dozen measuring points to sense the touches on the entire arm. It is, therefore, less likely for the measuring points to get damaged when cut or stabbed with a knife and damaged parts can recover like human skin once glued back together. This technology in the future could be used in many different areas including prosthetic arms and legs for amputees and robotic skin.

[Soundbite] Prof. Kim Jung(Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, KAIST) : "It can be used for prosthetic limbs, and then for the skin of humanoid robots, service robots and cleaning robots."

It will take a bit more time to commercialize this technology, but it won’t be long before we begin seeing robots with human-like skin.