What are the newest sensor technologies for improving robotic systems?

Event cameras are an advanced vision sensor technology that asynchronously captures brightness changes at each pixel with high temporal resolution. Unlike standard cameras, they produce a stream of events with detailed information on brightness changes, making them ideal for fast-paced, high-precision robotic applications like drone racing and obstacle avoidance. Their efficiency in transmitting only relevant changes reduces computational load and power consumption, making them a valuable tool for dynamic and energy-efficient vision processing tasks.

Sensor technologies are revolutionizing robotic systems, enabling them to perceive their surroundings more accurately, interact with objects dexterously, and operate more autonomously. Event cameras, tactile skins, optical fibers, and quantum sensors are some of the promising advancements. Event cameras record pixels that change in brightness, making them faster, energy-efficient, and less sensitive to motion blur. Tactile skins, made of flexible materials embedded with sensors, can sense and manipulate objects with dexterity rivaling humans. Optical fibers, used in telecommunications, can be used to create lightweight, flexible sensors embedded in robotic limbs or monitored for structure health.

Examples are: - LiDAR: Light Detection and Ranging sensors are used to create 3D models of the environment around the robot. This information can be used for navigation, obstacle avoidance, and more. - Radar: Radar sensors can detect the distance and speed of objects around the robot. They are often used in combination with LiDAR sensors for a more complete picture of the environment. - Ultrasonic sensors: These sensors use sound waves to detect the distance of nearby objects. They are often used for obstacle avoidance and navigation, etc.

Researchers are developing three-dimensional, flexible structures that resemble human skin. These structures incorporate various sensors to detect pressure, temperature, and vibration, providing robots with a more comprehensive understanding of their environment.

Advanced technologies like tactile skins make robots more responsive and engaging. Robots can interact more naturally and nuancedly with the environment and humans thanks to these artificial skins' touch sensors. Sensory enhancement, grip control, fine motor skill improvement, and human-robot interaction safety are key elements. Prosthetics, rehabilitation, healthcare, industrial automation, and home robots use tactile skins. Research on self-healing and adaptable materials, biomimetic sensors, and multimodal integration is advancing tactile skins. Tactile skins will change our understanding of human-machine interaction and allow robots to be safe and useful partners.

Tactile skins can be used to enhance the safety of human- robot interactions. As cobots are gaining tractions nowadays I would like to talk about a tactile skin product - AIRSKIN. Airskin is easy to use, simple, highly effective pressure sensitive pads which uses air as a medium to detect collisions, transforming any traditional manufacturing robot into a Cobot.

Tactile skins are artificial membranes designed to give robots a sense of touch, covering their surface with arrays of micro-sensors embedded in flexible materials like polymers or elastomers. These skins can detect various physical properties, including pressure, temperature, vibration, and strain. This capability allows robots to handle delicate and complex tasks such as grasping objects, providing haptic feedback, and recognizing different items. Beyond enhancing a robot's manipulation abilities, tactile skins improve safety and human-robot interaction by detecting collisions, measuring contact forces, and interpreting human gestures.

Tactile sensors that use cameras inside inflatable (or other fluid filled), deformable “fingers” are a relatively new technology, which I anticipate will soon graduate from research into commercialization. They provide extremely high fidelity information about contact, which is most suitable for feeding into a learned model for classifying the type of contact with various objects and surfaces, and/or predicting actions directly. As robots and learned models become more common and accepted in unstructured grasping environments, these sensors may provide a way to significantly improve tactile sensing.

Optical fibres minimise heat, improve sense and perception, robot dexterity and control, safety, and reliability, revolutionising robotics. These lightweight, flexible, and EMI-resistant fibres are perfect for tough situations or near delicate electronics. Robotic limbs and appendages can receive real-time location, force, and strain input. They instantly transmit vast volumes of data, helping robots see their surroundings more clearly. Non-conductive optical fibres are appropriate for flammable or explosive settings. They also resist wear and tear, extending service life and lowering maintenance expenses. Medical, industrial, submersible, exoskeleton, and prosthetic robots employ optical fibres.

In addition to the use of optical fibers for communication, which permits high bandwidth communication with excellent noise immunity at the expense of cost, another very fascinating technology you may not have heard of is FBG shape sensing. Fiber optic shape sensing using Fiber Bragg Grating Structures allows for high-quality 3D Sensing of the shape of an optical fiber. It is most commonly found in biomedical robot applications, but may have uses in many other robotics applications as well, such as soft robotics.

Quantum sensors revolutionise robotics with unprecedented sensitivity and precision. Conventional sensors cannot monitor physical quantities as well as these quantum mechanics sensors. They can sense tiny changes in magnetic fields, gravity, and other physical phenomena, helping robots understand their surroundings. Quantum sensors sense gravity, pressure, temperature, magnetic fields, and electric fields. They increase obstacle avoidance, localization, mapping, and human-robot interaction by improving robot performance and navigation. Medical robotics, space exploration, manufacturing, assembling, and environmental monitoring could use quantum sensors.

Event cameras, tactile skins, optical fibers, quantum sensors, MEMS sensors, neuromorphic sensors, and bio-inspired sensors are emerging technologies that are revolutionizing robotics. Event cameras capture pixels that change in intensity, making them energy-efficient and suitable for low-light conditions. Tactile skins, artificial skins that sense pressure, temperature, and other tactile stimuli, are in their early stages of development but have the potential to revolutionize robotic surgery and assistive robotics. Optical fibers are becoming popular for robotic sensing due to their small size, flexibility, and immunity to electromagnetic interference. Quantum sensors, utilizing quantum mechanics principles.

This is no new subject in R&D but Haptics are some interesting paradigms and sensing tech that should be elaborated on more in depth. Haptics is the interoceptive capability of a system to appreciate the forces and momentum/torques exerted on an object by the appreciation of the kinematics and kinetics involved in an interaction between the object manipulated and the end-effector manipulating it: good exemples of the use of this technology will be to appreciate the weight of the object in order to manipulate it with the proper effort on links and joints of the robot...

In my experience, the best sensor is one that suits a firm’s specific needs, requirements and budget. As a company, make your short and long term goals clear before purchasing sensors in order to streamline the options, thus finding sensors that are most suited to you.