Robots get pressure sensitive skin

Organic field-effect transistors have been used to fabricate pressure-sensitive skin for robots, according to an abstract published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week.

Why is this good news? Because all of these fancy robots you’ve been reading about have wonderful machine vision and even voice recognition, but they don’t have a good sense of touch. At present, it is not possible to manufacture large area skin with thousands of silicon-based electronic pressure sensors with good mechanical flexibility. Organic field-effect transistors and rubber pressure sensors are used to create a practical artifical skin.