The new robotic finger crafted by Koh Hosoda and colleagues at Osaka University, Japan have the sense of touch. The robotic finger can literally touch, differentiate and select out from various materials such as paper, cork, vinyl or wood via its sensors that are especially designed to gauge through the physical structure of the material. Carved out of silicon, the finger resembles human finger very closely owing to embedded strain sensors woven at different depths. Though it may still find it difficult to pick up a coin, the robotic finger can help in sensing people trapped under a collapsed building.



Via: newscientist