Scientists at theUniversity of Bristol已经开发出人工指尖，有可能使截肢者通过假肢“感觉”对象。
该团队的“ Tactip”设备由一系列的3D印刷乳头组成，类似于在人皮肤表面下方发现的乳头，在以人造神经信号的形式中传入此数据之前，该团队的“ Tactip”设备能够感知形状。研究人员说，借助进一步的研发，他们的合成指尖可以彻底改变机器人技术的世界，或者帮助改善世界各地假肢的人的控制。
“Our work helps uncover how the complex internal structure of human skin creates our human sense of touch,” says Bristol Robotics Lab’s Professor Nathan Lepora. “This is an exciting development in the field of soft robotics – being able to 3D print tactile skin could create robots that are more dexterous or significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands by giving them an in-built sense of touch.”
意识到真正的动物机器人技术
根据布里斯托尔的科学家的说法，人工智能的进步（AI）意味着机器现在可以击败世界上最好的国际象棋玩家，但是机器人的手仍然缺乏移动碎片本身的灵活性。为了克服这一点，团队说，神经科学和机器人技术开始“融合”，产生了人造触觉感觉系统，可以在接触时更好地“感觉”对象。
开发具有真正人类的触觉的机器人的关键之一，是如何在我们的周围神经系统中编码这种刺激。在人类皮肤的情况下，它是由复杂的层，微结构和感觉受体组合的组成的，其基于其许多核心功能，从保护我们的内部器官到启用感觉接触。
With this in mind, the researchers have tried to create a robotic fingertip that mimics the dermal and epidermal outer layers of human skin, by making these from a rubber-like material and soft elastomeric gel. Housed in aStratasys3 d印刷外壳,提供的设备nsory capabilities by a mesh of ridges and nodular pins seeded along its surface, much like dermal papillae.
In essence, the resulting TacTip structure can detect the deformation of skin via the lateral movement of markers on its pin tips, before relaying information collected via a series of tiny cameras. These optical markers can, at least theoretically, then slowly be tuned to match the sensory stimuli sent towards the central nervous system and brain by the human body, recreating the sensation of ‘feeling’ objects.
“Human tactile nerves transmit signals from various nerve endings called mechanoreceptors, which can signal the pressure and shape of a contact,” explains Lepora. “We found our 3D printed tactile fingertip could produce artificial nerve signals that look like recordings from real, tactile neurons.”
Putting the TacTip to the test
In order to evaluate their TacTip device, the Bristol team subjected it to three human touch experiments, designed to test its force, shape and orientation feedback capabilities. During the first of these, which saw the artificial fingertip mounted to anabbsix-axis robotic arm and compressed, it demonstrated a human-like response to pressure, albeit one that peaked in intensity slightly more quickly.
但是，当用来感知各种形状不同的光栅的方向时，该设备比自然皮肤更敏感。在他们的论文中，科学家认为，这可能是由于人造皮肤比自然对应物更厚，柔韧性较小，但除了轻微的敏感性丧失外，它们实际上实际上存在两者之间的“高度融合”。
As a result, though the team concede that the TacTip needs tweaking, they anticipate it could eventually be fitted to robotic hands, the likes of which they’re developing at their lab, to provide factory machines with the sensory perception needed to adjust their grip for picking up certain items, enabling them to automate tasks that still require a human touch.
Lepora总结道：“从创建对未来的完全自主工厂到自主农业，这种技术有广泛的用途。”“我们可以让机器人做到这一点，而在更具未来派的应用中，它可以恢复对假肢的感觉。”
While the concept of building robots with a human-like sense of taste or touch may sound like something straight out of a sci-fi movie, researchers continue to take concrete steps towards achieving this, often with the help of 3D printing.
直到2020年，科学家University of Leeds和爱丁堡大学，能够3D打印味觉敏感的舌头。由人造乳头制成，类似于布里斯托尔大学（University of Bristol）团队所使用的机器人舌头，不仅具有类似于真实物质的质地，而且被证明能够检测食物。
就机器人四肢而言，该技术也经常在该领域部署，工程师位于马里兰大学甚至设法用3D打印的手击败超级马里奥兄弟。研究人员的软机器人由气压而不是电力提供动力，只有三个手指，但这并没有阻止它超过游戏的第一级。
研究人员的发现在其论文中详细介绍了“人造SA-I，RA-I和RA-II/vibrotactile传入用于纹理的触觉传入“ 和 ”Artificial SA-I and RA-I afferents for tactile sensing of ridges and gratings”，由尼古拉斯·佩斯特尔（Nicholas Pestell），汤姆·格里菲斯（Thom Griffith）和内森·勒波拉（Nathan F. Lepora）合着。
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特色图显示了研究人员的3D印刷“ Tactip”人工指尖。通过布里斯托大学的图像。
