Whether it is ‘Vision’ from Avengers: Age of Ultron or ‘T-800 Terminator’ from Terminator 1; sci-fi movies have depicted life-like robots carrying out imaginable human tasks with the same approach and efficiency as humans—irrespective of the complexity. Moreover, we have seen robots as more advanced and intelligent than the human race.
This is far from being true as robots are actually ‘dumb’. They function in controlled environments. Although they succeed at doing intelligent tasks, they fail at doing regular and everyday tasks. However, a recent scientific breakthrough may take us a step closer to cracking down on robot dexterity. This might be the beginning of a new era (where we have a real-life Jarvis in a human body).
Dexterity and Moravec’s Paradox
Robot dexterity is a robot’s ability to cope with a variety of objects and actions. It defines how robots can interact and handle objects and take necessary actions on the objects. Although robots can perform tasks that are beyond the comprehension level of humans, they keep failing at doing simple tasks. This instance is termed as ‘Moravec’s Paradox’. Robots can precisely cut through a metal sheet as per the given measurements but are unable to open a door lock.
Robots can defeat humans in games like chess that require a high level of intelligence, but they cannot get a newspaper from the lawn. Therefore, dexterity in robots is important. Researchers from the University of Bristol have developed a 3D-printed fingertip that gives a sense of human skin touch.
Are we a step closer to cracking dexterity?
Researchers also found that the new fingertip can produce artificial nerve signals which mimic those of humans. Eventually, they hope to be able to make artificial skin that is indistinguishable from real skin. In addition to that, they also created the sense of touch in the artificial fingertip using a 3D-printed mesh of tiny pin-like bumps similar to those found on human skin.
The bumps are made on 3D printers that can mix together soft and hard materials to create complicated structures like those found in biology. The aim, quoted by the researchers, is to make artificial skin as good or even better than real skin. The main breakthrough here is that the ability to create 3D-print tactile skin could create robots that are more dexterous.
Currently, robot dexterity is one of the biggest aims of the robotic industry. A breakthrough in this can help scientists program robots to carry out every imaginable task. The newly developed 3D-printed fingertip can create robots that are more dexterous or significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands by giving them an in-built sense of touch.
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