Giving Robots the Power to Feel

When you think about it, touch is a bizarre sense. Unlike sound or light, tactile properties can be difficult to quantify. You can measure decibels but touch is a subjective sense with subjective descriptions, like rough or squishy or cold.

Subjective until now, that is. A company called SynTouch, which spun out of the University of Southern California, has created a robotic fingertip that rubs a material and precisely measures the "feel" of it in 15 dimensions, ranging from coarseness to coolness.

This robot finger doesn't feel the world like yours, which relies on nerves. Embedded in a dome shape are 19 super-sensitive electrodes, over which a skin of silicon is stretched.

The robot can sense how much pressure it's applying, and quantify the give of the material it's applying pressure to.

And that's pivotal for a future in which robots interact closely with humans. Our sense of touch allows us to grip a water bottle gently and a door handle more firmly, and the robots need to do the same. We wouldn't want them crushing dishes and cups and skulls, now would we?

生词好句

when you think about it: it's used when you mention sth. that you have suddenly remembered or realized, usually sth. amazing or surprising. (等同于: come to think of it)

squishy /ˈskwɪʃi/: adj. soft and moist; soft and easily crushed or squashed. (常用搭配: a squishy character: a character who dies a lot.)

until now, that is: it's used to describe a situation that has existed up to this point or up to the present time, but has just changed.

spin /spɪn/ out of: to get (a company or product) from sth. larger; a business company that has developed from another larger company or organization. (常用搭配: a spin-out company)

give: n. it's a quality or a characteristic; sth. that is flexible, doesn't break easily, can take pressure without breaking. (常用搭配: give-and-take)

pivotal /ˈpɪvətl/: adj. 关键的 (常用搭配: play a pivotal role in...)

we wouldn't want..., now would we? : it's not a real question. We use it to emphasize a possible bad result or situation. (常用搭配: if you don't... (and) we wouldn't want that to happen, now would we? )

"We humans have a love-hate

relationship with our technology.

We love each new advance and we

hate how fast our world is changing.

The robots really embody that

love-hate relationship we

have with technology.

Daniel H. Wilson, a roboticist