These flexible robotic skins were created with elastic sheets embedded with sensors and actuators. These robotic skins can turn everyday objects into robots. (Photo via Yale University)
Robots have come a long away over the years. Some of them are massive humanoid machines, others are so small they’re hard to see with the naked eye. Despite this, they’re still pretty limited to what they can do and what they look like. But what if there was a way to create a robot that could take any shape? That’s exactly what researchers at Yale University have created. Their latest device is a programmable robot “skin” that has the ability to turn any object into a robot.
These robotic skins, developed in the lab of Rebecca Kramer-Bottiglio, let you design your own robotic systems. Kramer-Bottiglio says the bot was created with no specific task in mind, but she imagines the skins could be used in a wide variety of situations, like search-and-rescue missions to wearable tech.
So how exactly do they work? The skins are made from elastic sheets embedded with sensors and actuators. As the accompanying video shows, you just wrap the sheets around a deformable object, like a stuffed animal, and the skins animate the object from their surfaces. The robots can then handle different tasks depending on the properties of the soft objects and how the skins are applied. And if you want the robot to perform more complex movements, you just add more than one skin at a time to get different types of motion.
"We can take the skins and wrap them around one object to perform a task -- locomotion, for example -- and then take them off and put them on a different object to perform a different task, such as grasping and moving an object," she said. "We can then take those same skins off that object and put them on a shirt to make an active wearable device."
But there is a catch; the skins can’t be applied to every single thing. Rather, they should be used on flexible objects. If the robotic skins are used on things that are too stiff, it won’t move at all. This is why researchers tested the bots on objects like plushies and a small foam cylinder. In the latter case, they added a camera to the end of it and programmed it to sense light and crawl towards it.
NASA is the source of inspiration behind the robotic skins. Kramer-Bottiglio says she designed the technology in partnership with NASA when they put out a call for soft robotic systems a few years ago. The multifunctional and reusable nature of the bots would be ideal for astronauts in helping them complete an array of tasks with the same flexible material. For instance, the skins used to make a robotic arm out of a piece of foam could be removed and used to create a soft Mars rover that can navigate on rough surfaces.
“I’m really excited to see what other people will do with robotic skins,” says Kramer-Bottiglio. “The possibilities are endless.”
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