The softness of an object, often underestimated, is a crucial factor in an extensive range of actions and interactions in our mundane life. From distinguishing the ripeness of an avocado to conducting a medical examination or just cherishing a tender touch of a loved one, understanding and emulating the sensation of softness is a complex challenge that has eluded scientists for ages.
However, in a significant breakthrough, researchers from the renowned École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne have developed an advanced haptic device that has successfully replicated the sensation of softness of an assortment of materials, ranging from a plush marshmallow to the rhythmic beating of a heart.
The complex nature of softness perception entails the amalgamation of a multitude of sensory and cognitive processes. Prior attempts at producing haptic tools faltered due to inadequate segregation between the two primary elements of softness perception. These include cutaneous cues (sensory feedback from our fingertips' skin) and kinesthetic cues (feedback pertaining to the force exerted on our finger joints).
Picture this; when you press upon a marshmallow, the softness is very perceivable. However, place a hard biscuit on top of the marshmallow, and press again. Even though your fingertip is now in contact with a hard surface, you can still sense the soft underbelly of the marshmallow. This was the ambitious goal the researchers set out to emulate in a robotic interface.
Enter SORI (Softness Rendering Interface); a robotic interface backed by the prolific RRL team led by Jamie Paik. SORI's approach was innovative in the way that it dissociated cutaneous and kinesthetic cues to successfully emulate the sensation of softness of various real-world materials using motor-driven origami joints. This breakthrough offers new horizons in many fields where the sensation of softness is of paramount importance, such as deep-sea exploration and robotic-assisted surgeries.
Of course, the human perception of softness is subjective, influenced by factors such as the size and firmness of our fingertips. To address this, parameters for fingertip geometries and contact surfaces were developed. These parameters laid the foundation for the SORI, upon which the researchers mapped softness parameters from a variety of materials.
Equipped with innovative origami joints driven by motors, which could be modulated to become rigid or more pliant, the SORI interface could definitely change our interactions with the world of technology. Whether it is examining the underbellies of a deep-sea creature, detecting cancerous tumors without invasive procedures, or just picking ripe fruits without crushing them, the SORI interface has the potential to revolutionize our future digital exchanges.
Disclaimer: The above article was written with the assistance of AI. The original sources can be found on ScienceDaily.
