Multifunctional Electronic Skins Enable Robots to Safely and Dexterously Interact with Human.

Human-robot collaboration is playing more and more important roles in current deployments of robotic systems in our lives. Haptic perception and intelligent control are essential to ensure safety and efficiency of human-robot interaction. However, existing robotic sensory and control systems are deficient in terms of performance issues, complexity, and cost. Here, the authors report a multifunctional electronic skin (e-skin) incorporating multiple perceptions with intelligent robotic control, by which robots can safely and dexterously interact with humans. The e-skin with a simple and cost-effective sensory structure has multimodal perceptions of proximity, temperature, contact force, and contact position with broad measuring range, high sensitivity, and fast response. The e-skin is applied onto robots to accomplish obstacle avoidance, safe and dexterous human-robot interaction, smart teaching, and playing Tai-Chi, which demonstrate a broad range of applications for intelligent robots equipped with e-skins.