Local Discrimination Based on Piezoelectric Sensing in Robots Composed of Soft Matter with Different Physical Properties

The coronavirus epidemic has attracted significant attention to the applications of pet robots which can be used to treat and entertain people in their homes. However, pet robots are fabricated using hard materials and it is difficult for them to communicate with people through contact. Soft robots are expected to realize communication through contact similar to that of actual pets. Soft robots provide people with a sense of healing and security owing to their softness and can extract rich information through external stimuli by applying a machine learning framework called physical-reservoir computing. It is crucial to determine the differences between the physical properties of soft materials that affect the information extracted from a soft body to develop an intelligent soft robot. In this study, two owl-shaped soft robots with different softnesses were developed to analyze the characteristics of the signal data obtained via piezoelectric film sensors embedded in models with different physical properties. An accuracy of 94.2% and 95.9% was obtained for touched part classification using 1D CNN and logistic regression models, respectively. Additionally, the relationship between the softness of material and classification performance was investigated by comparing the distribution of part classification accuracy for different hyper-parameters of two owl models.

Robotic Glove Prototype: Development and Simulation

With the fast development in the field of the Internet of Things, remote control for laboratory equipment has the potential to grow up. Moreover, due to COVID-19 restrictions, it has rapid application in research and educational laboratories. This paper presents a robotic glove prototype based on sensors that can control the robotic fingers for remote operation of conventional laboratory test benches. The robotic glove prototype is implemented with an Arduino. An additional low pass filter is used to level down the remote measurement noise. The development approach used in a particular case study may be applied for remote control of similar devices. Designed mathematical models are publicly available on GitHub. © 2021 IEEE.

Conductive Polymer Nanocomposites for Stretchable Electronics: Material Selection, Design, and Applications.

Stretchable electronics that can elongate elastically as well as flex are crucial to a wide range of emerging technologies, such as wearable medical devices, electronic skin, and soft robotics. Critical to stretchable electronics is their ability to withstand large mechanical strain without failure while retaining their electrical conduction properties, a feat significantly beyond traditional metals and silicon-based semiconductors. Herein, we present a review of the recent advances in stretchable conductive polymer nanocomposites with exceptional stretchability and electrical properties, which have the potential to transform a wide range of applications, including wearable sensors for biophysical signals, stretchable conductors and electrodes, and deformable energy-harvesting and -storage devices. Critical to achieving these stretching properties are the judicious selection and hybridization of nanomaterials, novel microstructure designs, and facile fabrication processes, which are the focus of this Review. To highlight the potentials of conductive nanocomposites, a summary of some recent important applications is presented, including COVID-19 remote monitoring, connected health, electronic skin for augmented intelligence, and soft robotics. Finally, perspectives on future challenges and new research opportunities are also presented and discussed.

Feasibility Study and Experimental Evaluation of the Design of Nodule Prototype Developed for Palpation Display Apparatus: A Novel Device for Contactless Primary Tactile Diagnosis.

BACKGROUND: Lack of feasible palpation display for primary diagnosis of a tumor without any need of physician to patient physical contact has been reported as one of the major concerns. To further explore this area, we developed a novel palpation device consisting of a uniquely designed nodule mechanism (based on optimizing nodule top and bottom hemisphere wall thickness and manipulating granular jamming method) that can vary stiffness while maintaining the shape of the same nodule display, for which current devices are not capable of in terms of aping a tumor. METHODS: This paper evaluates the manufacturing approach of the nodule, exploring several iterations of the nodule prototype. Experiments were performed on nodule prototypes of varying wall thicknesses in order to evaluate its effect on stiffness and deformation. RESULTS AND CONCLUSIONS: Experimental results showed that nodule top and bottom wall thickness had a significant effect on the stiffness and deformation of the nodule. The higher the thickness of the top hemisphere and the lower the thickness of the bottom hemisphere, the greater the stiffness the nodule can achieve. Similarly, the display shape of the nodule can be maintained with minimal or no deformation if the nodule top hemisphere thickness is optimally higher than bottom hemisphere thickness.