Robotics
A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, has developed an artificial finger that was able to identify certain surface materials with 90% accuracy. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, ...
Robotics
Machines can beat the world's best chess player, but they cannot handle a chess piece as well as an infant. This lack of robot dexterity is partly because artificial grippers lack the fine tactile sense of the human fingertip, ...
Apr 5, 2022
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Robotics
Picking up a blueberry or grape without squishing it isn't hard, but try teaching it to a robot. The same goes for walking on ice, turning a key to unlock a door or cooking a favorite dish.
Nov 3, 2021
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111
Robotics
A new type of energy-generating synthetic skin could create more affordable prosthetic limbs and robots capable of mimicking the sense of touch, scientists say.
Nov 30, 2020
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133
Engineering
What if you could touch a loved one during a video call—particularly in today's social distancing era of COVID-19—or pick up and handle a virtual tool in a video game?
Sep 9, 2020
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Robotics
Imagine being able to build and use a robotic device without the need for expensive, specialist kit or skills. That is the vision that researchers from the University of Bristol have turned into reality, creating a lightweight, ...
Oct 20, 2019
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Robotics
From warehouses to hospitals, soft robots are used in different places to assist humans in moving items, treating patients, and gathering information. As interests in these robots keep growing, scientists are developing ways ...
Jul 29, 2019
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Robotics
In Canadian author Margaret Atwood's book The Blind Assassin, she says that "touch comes before sight, before speech. It's the first language and the last, and it always tells the truth."
Jun 17, 2019
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21
Electronics & Semiconductors
Virtual and augmented reality (VR and AR), often combined under the term 'extended reality (XR)', are increasingly losing their niche status and entering the mass market. Think of the metaverse, gaming, applications in industry ...
Mar 9, 2023
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Robotics
More than a decade ago, Ted Adelson set out to create tactile sensors for robots that would give them a sense of touch. The result? A handheld imaging system powerful enough to visualize the raised print on a dollar bill. ...
Jul 27, 2022
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The somatosensory system is a diverse sensory system comprising the receptors and processing centres to produce the sensory modalities such as touch, temperature, proprioception (body position), and nociception (pain). The sensory receptors cover the skin and epithelia, skeletal muscles, bones and joints, internal organs, and the cardiovascular system. While touch is considered one of the five traditional senses, the impression of touch is formed from several modalities; In medicine, the colloquial term touch is usually replaced with somatic senses to better reflect the variety of mechanisms involved.
The system reacts to diverse stimuli using different receptors: thermoreceptors, mechanoreceptors and chemoreceptors. Transmission of information from the receptors passes via sensory nerves through tracts in the spinal cord and into the brain. Processing primarily occurs in the primary somatosensory area in the parietal lobe of the cerebral cortex.
At its simplest, the system works when a sensory neuron is triggered by a specific stimulus such as heat; this neuron passes to an area in the brain uniquely attributed to that area on the body—this allows the processed stimulus to be felt at the correct location. The mapping of the body surfaces in the brain is called a homunculus and is essential in the creation of a body image.
This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA
