Researchers use neuromorphic chips and electronic ‘skin’ to give robots a sense of touch
The creators call it “the most intelligent skin ever”
An artificial nervous system
The researchers built their artificial brain with Intel’s neuromorphic research chip:Loihi. The chip processes data from anartificial “spiking” neural network inspired by human neurons, which communicate by sending electrical spikes to one other.
“The ability to transmit a large amount of information very quickly and efficiently — and do the computation as well — is something humans are very good at,” saidTee.
“To grab an object so that it’s not going to slip out of your grasp — and if it is slipping out, you’re reflexively quickly able to give it a stronger grab — these are things that humans do at a millisecond level.”
In their initial test of the system, the researchers applied the artificial skin to a robotic hand and tasked it to read Braille. The system then sent signals collected by the skin to the Loihi chip, which converted the data into a semantic meaning. It managed to classify the Braille letters with over 92 percent, using 20 times less power than a standard Von Neumann processor.
The researchers then tested the benefits of combining vision and touch data. They added a camera to the system and trained the robot to classify containers filled with differing amounts of liquid. They say the Loihi chip processed this data 21% faster than the best performing GPU — while using 45 times less power.
The researchers envision the system being used to handle objects in factories and warehouses. Eventually, they believe it could improve human-robot interactions in caregiving and surgery.
“In 50 years, I really think we will have surgical robots that can perform certain surgeries autonomously because they have a sense of touch,” said Tee.
Soh was more reticent to make predictions.
“This is really an enabling technology, I think. I’m looking forward to the innovative ways that people are going to make use of this intelligent skin,” he said. “I think there are a lot of things that we haven’t even come up with yet.”
Story byThomas Macaulay
Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity, and government policy.Thomas is a senior reporter at TNW. He covers European tech, with a focus on AI, cybersecurity, and government policy.
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