Artificial pain sensors could help robots avoid damaging themselves

Synthetic pores and skin that may sense probably dangerous forces might assist robots detect hazard, in an identical technique to how ache helps folks keep away from hazards.

In people, painful sensations come from a complex interplay between peripheral nerve alerts and the mind’s interpretation of them. Electrical spikes despatched by ache sensors within the pores and skin, referred to as nociceptors, are relayed by nerves to a number of elements of the mind, which may result in self-preserving actions, equivalent to shifting a hand away from a pointy knife.

Jie Tan at Hunan College…