WOULD you trust a robot around your baby? Robot maids that won’t trample the kids underfoot have come a step closer with the development of a super-stretchy conducting material that could be used to give them sensitive skin.
The material was developed by a team led by Takao Someya of the University of Tokyo in Japan, who have been trying to produce a flexible covering for a robot. Pressure and temperature sensors in the “e-skin” would make the robot acutely aware of its surroundings.
“Without human skin-like sensitivity, robots cannot be used in everyday life. Imagine the danger if a robot did not recognise when it had accidentally bumped into a young child,” says Someya. But connecting up the sensors is a challenge: wires normally snap if they are stretched by more than 1 or 2 per cent.
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“Without skin-like sensitivity, robots cannot be used in everyday life”
The new material is a mixture of carbon nanotubes – which provide conductivity – and a polymer base. Nanotubes tend to clump together rather than spreading evenly throughout the polymer, however, which limits the material’s conductivity and makes it inelastic and brittle. , overcame this problem, although Someya says it’s still unclear how this works. The team achieved the best combination of stretchability and conductivity when the material contained 20 per cent by weight of (Science, ).
A mesh made from this material can be stretched to more than twice its length. While some conductivity is lost, Someya’s team has used the material to make integrated circuits that still function when stretched by up to 70 per cent.
The conductor is not as efficient as metal-based alternatives, but the team hopes it will be cheaper and more robust, making it useful for applications besides robots, such as wearable medical monitors. “The starting point is a solution, so the technology is ideally suited for mass production by printing onto a rubber film,” says Someya, who suggests it could be used in steering wheels that monitor a driver’s vital signs and sound an alarm if they nod off.
“Anywhere you need electronics that can stretch and bend without compromising performance, this is going to be quite a breakthrough,” says Gordon Wallace of the University of Wollongong in New South Wales, Australia.
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