Inspired by the "last inch" problem in robotic manipulation, the Kennedy group at Stanford has developed a tactile sensor and calibration method for machine-learning-based robotic manipulation.
Robots will need sensory skins to safely interact with humans and navigate more complex environments than factory work cells. This invention is a new stretchable pneumatic sensor skin that can feel its surroundings and reach for objects in constrained environments.
Researchers in Professor Zhenan Bao's group at Stanford University have developed a biomimetic soft electronic skin (e-skin) with multiple levels of biologically inspired patterning that can detect the direction of applied forces.