Stanford engineers have prototyped and tested a flexible, soft growing robot that can deploy sensor networks for investigation in constrained spaces (see video below). Existing sensors for growing robots have focused on moving with the tip of the robot.
Stanford researchers have developed a technique to interpret contact events between a human and a device equipped with a force sensor. It can detect and classify distinct touch interactions such as tap, touch, grab, and slip.
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.