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IMAGE: The polyurethane and gold sensor can resist shear forces and rubbing. View More
Credit: © 2020 Someya et al.
Researchers have developed an ultra-thin pressure sensor that can be attached directly to the skin. It can measure how fingers interact with objects to produce useful data for medical and technological applications. The sensor has little effect on the sensitivity and ability of users to grasp objects and is resistant to interruptions due to rubbing. The team also hopes that their sensor can be used for the new task of digitally archiving the skills of the craftsmen.
There are many reasons why researchers want to record the movement and other physical details associated with the hands and fingers. Our hands are our main tools for directly interacting and manipulating materials and our immediate environment. By recording how the hands perform various tasks, it could help researchers in fields like sports and medical science, as well as neuroengineering and more. But capturing this data isn’t easy.
“Our fingertips are extremely sensitive, so sensitive that a sheet of super-thin plastic a few millionths of a meter thick is enough to influence someone’s sensations,” said Professor Sunghoon Lee of the Someya Group of the University of Tokyo. “So a wearable finger sensor has to be extremely thin. But that obviously makes it very fragile and susceptible to damage from rubbing or repeated physical actions. To remedy this, we’ve created a special functional material that is thin and porous called a sensor nanometric. “
Lee and his team created two types of layers for their sensors. Both layers were made with a process called electro spinning, which looks like a spider spinning its web. One is a polyurethane insulation mesh with fibers from about 200 nanometers to 400 nanometers thick, about one-five hundredth the thickness of human hair. The second layer is a stencil-like network of lines that forms the functional electronic component of the sensor. This one is made of gold and uses a support frame of polyvinyl alcohol, often found in contact lenses, which is washed off after manufacture to leave only the traces of gold it was holding. Multiple layers combine to form a functional pressure and motion sensor.
“We performed a rigorous series of tests on our sensors with the help of 18 test subjects,” said Lee. “They confirmed that the sensors were inaudible and affected neither the ability to grasp objects through friction, nor the perceived sensitivity of performing the same task without a sensor connected. This is exactly the result we were hoping for.”
This is the first time in the world that a fingertip-mounted sensor with no effect on skin sensitivity has been successfully demonstrated. And the sensor maintained its performance as a pressure sensor even after being rubbed against a surface with a force of 100 kilopascals, roughly equivalent to atmospheric pressure, 300 times without breaking. A new application that the team would like to see is the digital archiving of delicate handcrafted work by artisans or even the work of highly skilled surgeons. If these processes can be recorded, it may become possible to train machines on how to perform tasks with a greater degree of fidelity than has ever been achieved before.
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newspaper article
Sunghoon Lee, Sae Franklin, Faezeh Arab Hassani, Tomoyuki Yokota, Md Osman Goni Nayeem, Yan Wang, Raz Leib, Gordon Cheng, David W. Franklin and Takao Someya. Nanomesh pressure sensor to monitor finger manipulation without sensory interference. Science.
Financing
This work was supported by Japan Science and Technology (JST) ACCEL (grant number JPMJMI17F1), the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI (grant number 17H06149) and the Technische Universität München – Institute for Advanced Study, funded by the German Initiative of Excellence (and the European Union’s Seventh Framework Program under grant agreement No. 291763).
Useful links
Someya Group – http: // www.
Graduate School of Engineering – https: /
Search contact
Professor Takao Someya
Someya Group, Graduate School of Engineering, The University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8656 JAPAN
Tel: + 81-3-5841-6756
Email: [email protected]
Press contact
Mr. Rohan Mehra
Division for Strategic Public Relations, University of Tokyo
7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-8654, JAPAN
Email: [email protected]
About the University of Tokyo
The University of Tokyo is Japan’s leading university and one of the best research universities in the world. The vast research output of some 6,000 researchers is published in the world’s leading journals in the arts and sciences. Our vibrant student body of approximately 15,000 undergraduate and 15,000 graduate students includes over 4,000 international students. Find out more at http: // www.
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