Optical hyperdimensional soft sensing: speckle-based touch interface and tactile sensor.

Hyperdimensional computing (HDC) is an emerging computing paradigm that exploits the distributed representation of input data in a hyperdimensional space, the dimensions of which are typically between 1,000-10,000. The hyperdimensional distributed representation enables energy-efficient, low-latency, and noise-robust computations with low-precision and basic arithmetic operations. In this study, we propose optical hyperdimensional distributed representations based on laser speckles for adaptive, efficient, and low-latency optical sensor processing. In the proposed approach, sensory information is optically mapped into a hyperdimensional space with >250,000 dimensions, enabling HDC-based cognitive processing. We use this approach for the processing of a soft-touch interface and a tactile sensor and demonstrate to achieve high accuracy of touch or tactile recognition while significantly reducing training data amount and computational burdens, compared with previous machine-learning-based sensing approaches. Furthermore, we show that this approach enables adaptive recalibration to keep high accuracy even under different conditions.

Speckle-based high-resolution multimodal soft sensing.

Skin-like soft sensors are key components for human-machine interfaces; however, the simultaneous sensing of several types of stimuli remains challenging because large-scale sensor integration is required with numerous wire connections. We propose an optical high-resolution multimodal sensing approach, which does not require integrating multiple sensors. This approach is based on the combination of an optical scattering phenomenon, which can encode the information of various stimuli as a speckle pattern, and a decoding technique using deep learning. We demonstrate the simultaneous sensing of three different physical quantities-contact force, contact location, and temperature-with a single soft material. Another unique capability of the proposed approach is spatially continuous sensing with an ultrahigh resolution of few tens of micrometers, in contrast to previous multimodal sensing approaches. Furthermore, a haptic soft device is presented for a human-machine interface. Our approach encourages the development of high-performance smart skin-like sensors.

Production of poly(3-hydroxybutyrate-co-3-hydroxyvalerate) in recombinant Corynebacterium glutamicum using propionate as a precursor.

Lipopolysaccharides free P[3-hydroxybutyrate (3HB)-co-3-hydroxyvalerate (3HV)] production was achieved using recombinant Corynebacterium glutamicum harboring polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA) biosynthetic genes from Ralstonia eutropha. Cells grown on glucose with feeding of propionate as a precursor of 3HV unit accumulated 8-47wt% of P(3HB-co-3HV). The 3HV fraction in the copolymer was varied from 0 to 28mol% depending on the propionate concentrations.

A rapid BOD sensing system using luminescent recombinants of Escherichia coli.

A biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) sensing system based on bacterial luminescence from recombinant Escherichia coli containing lux A-E genes from Vibrio fischeri has been developed. It was possible to use frozen cells of luminescent recombinants of E. coli as the bacterial reagents for measurement. Steady bioluminescence was observed during the incubation time between 90 and 150 min in the presence of a sole carbon source such as glucose, acetate, L-glutamate and BOD standard solution (GGA solution). This disposable bacterial reagent was applied to measure and detect organic pollution due to biodegradable substances in various wastewaters. The obtained values of this study showed a similar correlation with that of the conventional method for BOD determination (BOD5). Bacterial luminescence that was visualized with an imaging system using a charge coupled device (CCD) camera and a photomulti-counter demonstrated that this method could also be used for multi-sample detection of organic pollution due to biodegradable substances by using a microtiter plate. These results suggested for successful achievement of high-though-put detection of BOD in practical.