A new humanoid robot with a layer of external sensors on its arm made its public debut at AMD's Advancing AI conference in San Francisco, offering a look at how robots might one day work more safely alongside people.
The robot, called Gene.01, was built by a company called Generative Bionics. Its most notable feature is what the company calls smart skin, a rubbery outer layer embedded with two different types of sensors. According to CNET, a reporter who touched the smart skin described it as feeling like a neoprene wetsuit.
The first type of sensor detects touch. It can identify not only whether the robot is being touched, but also precisely where contact is happening and how much force is being applied. During a demonstration, when a reporter squeezed the rubbery skin, a rendering of the robot on a nearby television screen lit up in the exact area being touched, glowing blue and growing darker the harder the pressure was applied.
The second type of sensor detects proximity, meaning it registers when a person or object is close to the robot without actually making contact. These are called time-of-flight, or ToF, sensors in the robotics field. They work by sending invisible light out into the surrounding environment and measuring the time it takes for that light to bounce back to the sensor.
When a hand was placed near those sensors during the demonstration, a dense cluster of dots appeared on the screen near the robot, showing that it was detecting the presence. As the hand moved away, the cluster of dots spread out until they blended into the background.
The combination of touch and proximity sensing is designed to prevent collisions and allow for gentler interactions. That could make it possible for robots to work more closely alongside humans in shared spaces.
Generative Bionics describes Gene.01 as a starting point rather than a finished product. The company envisions it as a platform that can be customized for specific clients. The amount of smart skin a robot has, where it is placed, and what kind of hands or end effectors it uses will all depend on the type of work the robot will be built to perform.
The company says the real challenge ahead is not collecting sensor data, but applying that data to real-time decision-making. That is the area Generative Bionics says it is currently focused on developing.
