Robot hands gain a gentler touch
What use is a hand without nerves, that can’t tell what it’s holding? A hand that lifts a soda to your lips, but inadvertently tips or crushes the can 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 dexterous 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. “Despite decades of research, tactile sensing hasn’t moved into general use because it’s been expensive and fragile,” explains co-creator Leif Jentoft, a graduate student at SEAS. “It normally costs about $16,000, give or take, to put tactile sensing on a research robot hand. That’s really limited where people can use it. The...