BioTac Sensors

Syntouch LLC, makers of the (Shadow Hand compatible) BioTac tactile sensor, have published a study in Frontiers in Neurorobotics showing just what their sensors are capable of. “The specialized robot was trained on 117 common materials gathered from fabric, stationery and hardware stores. When confronted with one material at random, the robot could correctly identify the material 95% of the time, after intelligently selecting and making an average of five exploratory movements.” Syntouch are also currently using a Shadow hand equipped with BioTac sensors to carry out similar material identification research.

The video below explains the research presented in this paper, with the Shadow system used visible in the background.