The biological skin enables animals to sense various stimuli. Extensive efforts have been made recently to develop smart skin-like sensors to extend the capabilities of biological skins; however, simultaneous sensing of several types of stimuli in a large area remains challenging because this requires large-scale sensor integration with numerous wire connections. We propose a simple, highly sensitive, and multimodal sensing approach, which does not require integrating multiple sensors. The proposed approach is based on an optical interference technique, which can encode the information of various stimuli as a spatial pattern. In contrast to the existing approach, the proposed approach, combined with a deep neural network, enables us to freely select the sensing mode according to our purpose. As a key example, we demonstrate simultaneous sensing mode of three different physical quantities, contact force, contact location, and temperature, using a single soft material without requiring complex integration. Another unique property of the proposed approach is spatially continuous sensing with ultrahigh resolution of few tens of micrometers, which enables identifying the shape of the object in contact. Furthermore, we present a haptic soft device for a human-machine interface. The proposed approach encourages the development of high-performance optical skins.
翻译:生物皮肤使动物能够感知各种刺激。最近已作出大量努力,开发智能皮肤感应器,以扩大生物皮肤的能力;然而,在大面积地区同时感测几种类型的刺激,仍然具有挑战性,因为这需要与许多电线连接的大型感应器集成。我们建议采用简单、高度敏感和多式感应法,不需要多个感应器集成。提议的方法以光学干扰技术为基础,可将各种刺激的信息编码为空间模式。与现有方法不同,拟议的方法与深神经网络相结合,使我们能够根据我们的目的自由选择感应模式。作为关键的例子,我们展示了三种不同物理数量、接触力、接触位置和温度的同步感测模式,使用单一软材料而不需要复杂的集成。拟议方法的另一个独特特征是空间连续感测,只有几万个超高分辨率,能够辨明接触对象的形状。此外,我们为人体-机器界面提供了一种简软的装置。拟议方法鼓励发展高性光学皮肤。