seminars

Calogero Maria Oddo presents Touch science and engineering

On 2023-02-16 11:00 at G205, Karlovo náměstí 13, Praha 2
Full title: Touch science and engineering: from biomedical applications and
tactile restoration with neuromorphic information encoding to sensory
enrichment
for the metaverse

Abstract: The talk will discuss selected case studies of technologies developed
for endowing robots with artificial tactile sensors that are distributed over
large areas and to deliver tactile feedback for the metaverse.
In the presented scientific approach, robotic systems are developed by
capitalizing on a fertile interaction between robotics and neuroscience, so
that
the advancements of neuroscientific research can lead to the development of
more
effective technologies, which in turn contribute to the fundamental
understanding of physiological processes.
A first case study proposed is with piezoresistive MEMS sensors, applied to
bionic hand prostheses to restore rich tactile skills, such as texture
discrimination, in upper limb amputees. The developed biorobotic technologies
and artificial intelligence methods, based on information encoding with
neuromorphic spikes emulating physiological tactile representation, can be
applied to a variety of sensory augmentation scenarios. Additional technologies
were explored to cover large areas of robot bodies, including sensors based on
cultured biological cells such as MDCK, piezoelectric ZnO nanowires grown with
seedless hydrothermal method, and Fiber Bragg Grating (FBG) sensors.
Selected achievements are shown in the talk, discussing the application of
tactile sensing technologies in a gripper able to manipulate fragile and
deformable objects in collaboration with NASA-JPL, or for covering the full
area
of an anthropomorphic robotic arm recently published in Nature Machine
Intelligence journal. Particularly, covering a robotic arm with a large
sensorized skin allows the implementation of smart collaborative policies, such
as safe interaction and programming by demonstration, that can be deployed in
the factories of the future.
Responsible person: Petr Pošík