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Robotic Sense of Touch

Posted by Zonk on Sun Jun 11, 2006 04:43 PM
from the practical-applications-in-porn-industry-left-unspoken dept.
Robotics Science
Aryabhata writes "As per a BBC article, US scientists have created a device that could one day pave the way for robotic hands mimicking human touch. The research team from University of Nebraska in Lincoln hopes to apply this to aid surgery by allowing surgeons to feel the tissue they are operating on. This could help surgeons in distinguishing cancerous or abnormal tissue etc. To demonstrate the device the scientists tried the instrument on a one cent coin and the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty."
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[+] Hardware: Robotic Telesurgery by Remote Surgeons 134 comments
Roland Piquepaille writes "In a few years, telesurgery performed by multi-armed robots remotely controlled by real surgeons located hundreds or thousands of kilometers away will become commonplace. Today, Canadian doctors from the Centre for Minimal Access Surgery (CMAS) are developing the technology for NASA. Their goal is to build a portable robotic unit that would be used in space missions, war zones and remote areas within five years. So far, the experiments already done in Canada and for NASA are extremely encouraging. But read more for additional details and pictures of a real surgeon controlling such a robot."
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  • Excellent.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 11 2006, @04:47PM (#15513732)
    one step closer to our desired sex slavebots!

    • Official joke thread (Score:5, Funny)

      by MarkusQ (450076) on Sunday June 11 2006, @05:34PM (#15513848) Journal

      Since this appears to be the official joke thread for the article, I'll throw in my two cents:


      the sensor revealed the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing and the letters TY in liberty.

      I'm glad they've got a device that can still detect some of our liberty. I was starting to get worried.

      --MarkusQ

    • Nah, I'm quite content with having a robot that can detect wrinkles in Lincoln's clothing. And one that can identify the letters T and Y. This is perfect!
      • Ya know, this has got my attention. how about the following...
        • TelePerv.com - remote squeezeing of various body parts.
        • Since it can be digitized it can be stored and copied. Squeeze Vida Guerra's bum for only $4.95! Download now! Nah, I'll use SqueezeTorrent.com or eMule.
        • How could you sue a pervert Doctor that copped a feel while giving an ObGyn exam from a remote location. Like Hong Kong.
        • Or prevent him from coping that digitized sample and selling to med schools and online pr0n shops
        • Fu-Fme [fu-fme.com] could beco
  • why doesn't he remove the chip that makes me feel PAIN?

    • Re:no means no (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ZeroExistenZ (721849) on Sunday June 11 2006, @05:40PM (#15513870)
      why doesn't he remove the chip that makes me feel PAIN?

      Because "pain" protects you from yourself damaging your body [wikipedia.org]

      If you can't feel there's something wrong and abnormal with your body (broken leg, biting on tongue, finger stuck in a blender, ...) you wont act to protect it. Not damaging yourself wouldn't be a "reflex" anymore, but a contious process with not always the highest priority. Like an Interrupt request versus an API-call.

      • heh, I was just quoting from Drawn Together :-p but does draw all sorts of moral issues over the creation of AI's that "self preserve" through similar mechanisms as we do - what feelings shouldn't we try to recreate?

        • Does draw all sorts of moral issues over the creation of AI's that "self preserve" through similar mechanisms as we do

          I agree. Creating a robotic clone of a human isn't really what should be attempted as humans' nature is quite competitive and dominating.

          AI with a sense of "self" and with an ego could give quite disturbing scenario's.

  • Not for robots, really (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    This is more of a remote control application of sensors. It lets you feel through the robotic hands.

    In other words, it won't do anything for a sexbot, but the implications for the phone sex industry are profound!
    • Nah, this has uses in allowing software to detect fine changes in pressure, allowing certain systems to be more sensitive and flexible in their operation. For example, attached to an appropiate image recognition package, the robot will be able to maintain the right force and pressure and so on. I.e. it lets sexbots distinguish ahhhhs from arrrrghs.

  • I'd be more interested in the autonomous robotics (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RsG (809189) on Sunday June 11 2006, @05:18PM (#15513806)
    I get why this would be useful for telesurgery. But does anyone else thing this would be damn useful for robots more generally?

    AI is the single largest problem with making robots that act autonomously, but there are other issues as well, and sensory data is one of them. Humans, and other animals, depend on a variety of senses to interact with our environment - ranging from sonar to sight to smell (depending on species). An individual is severly limited with one of their senses lost/reduced.

    We could build a robot with sight easily - camera technology is getting better and better. Ditto sound recording, and even interpretation (voice recognition for example has come a long way). Gyroscopes can be used to give a sense of balance. It wouldn't be that difficult to add sonar or radar to that list, and smell we can probably skip for most applications. But touch is too useful not to have. For any device that moves independantly, being able to feel where it's putting its various body parts is potentially vital.

    How important is our sense of touch? Hands are useless without feedback as to where we're putting them. Imagine the advantages for a robot that can feel different surfaces (and determine what they're made of, how sturdy they are, etc). I suspect a fair number of problems with pathfinding could be solved by giving the robot instructions as to what surfaces will and won't support it's weight. Telling a vehicle sized robot to stick to the asphalt would be helpful, especially when you consider the alternatives. It'd be nice to be able to tell a bot meant for cleaning not to throw away money, or to differentiate between recycleable materials and regular garbage, or to avoid scrubbing the carpet with tile cleaner...

    Of course I'm probably getting ahead of the technology here - this sort of application won't exist for a long time yet. But hey, a geek can dream.
    • about picking up an egg, before it's too late?

      this isn't all that useful for 'sturdy' checking.. only experience can teach you that.

      a better method for surface detection under a gripping apendage would be a small rubber disk (fingertip) on the other side of which is a prism-- with a small amount of oil inbetween.. bounce a light off the disk and a camera on the other side.. perfect surface detection.
      • Touch could tell you that the egg is ovoid, has a certain texture, and a specific weight range. Comparing that to stored information about various objects could tell you that the object you're holding is an egg, rather than, say, a golf ball. This is essentially what human memory already accomplishes.

        All you need to do is either A) Give the robot learning capability and let it make mistakes (which is hard, but leads to more versatile behaviour), or B) Code for every object it is likely to come in contact

  • Forgetting something? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ethan Allison (904983) * <slashdot@neonstream.us> on Sunday June 11 2006, @05:36PM (#15513853) Homepage
    What about prosthetics that could actually feel? If I lost an arm or a leg or something, I'd pay top dollar not to lose my sense of touch.
    • You'd also need the techology to tie the prosthetic limb into your nervous system. That might actually be the harder part.

      OTOH, if you could tie into your peripheral nervous system, you'd have a prosthetic that not only had a sense of touch, but that could be controlled like a limb as well. The parts of your brain are already there to move it, so as long as you were born with the limb in question, you could probably train a prosthetic easily enough.
    • As i understand it - thats a bigger challenge.
      TFA speaks only about touch->image conversion, and i doubt they have anything that can actually mimic any given texture under the surgeons hand.
      The prosthetics we have now (if you have the cash) are able to react to nerves to some extent - forcing your arm to move, or grab an object.
      But i think that making a interface that actually lets you feel what the computer is telling you is a different story.
      And im talking tens of years of development.
      We are getting in
  • One cent coin? Isn't it easier to just say "a penny"?
  • sure, surgery and cancer and stuff...but what about the blackjack and hookers?

  • No iron handy in the 1800's huh? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Chabil Ha' (875116) on Sunday June 11 2006, @05:49PM (#15513907)
    "the wrinkles in President Lincoln's clothing"

    It's too bad the mint couldn't have ironed his clothes before casting him in metal...
  • Is this device included in Lego Mindstorms?
    I want to send a package to a good old friend of mine.

    Regards,

    Hannibal

  • Applications (Score:3, Interesting)

    by D H NG (779318) on Sunday June 11 2006, @07:45PM (#15514251)
    This might have some use to amputees. I heard a while ago that they were developing prosthetics with a sense of touch, but all they could do was distinguish between hot and cold.

    • Re:Transferring Touch? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Zelet (515452) on Sunday June 11 2006, @06:39PM (#15514050) Journal
      I have a friend working on this tech and they are getting close. Its a really hard thing to do because for large scale force feed back the mechanics are too big and complex to be easily mass produced. Then with the small scale (textures, etc) its hard interface the controls with the human hand and transmit such small changes in surface quickly enough to be useful.
    • Actually humans need to move their skin to scan a surface to be able to "read" it, this skin can read the surface without scanning/rubbing over it. So in a sense it already has surpassed an index finger.

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