Second Skin: Bio-Inspired Tactile Sensing Enabled by Droplet-Based Interfacial Iontronics

第二层皮肤：基于液滴的界面离子电子技术实现仿生触觉传感

• 批准号: 1307831
• 负责人: Tingrui Pan
• 金额: $ 25万
• 依托单位: University of California-Davis
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-08-15 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1307831&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Second; Skin; Bio; Inspired; Tactile

Objective: Human tactioception provides extensive information about the environment upon contact or through interactions. Inspired by the physiological tactile functions, this proposal aims to develop a highly sensitive tactile array on flexible and transparent substrates, utilizing a novel capacitive sensing principle at a droplet electrolyte-electrode interface. Several unconventional microfabrication techniques will be established to devise this unique tactile sensors with all flexible components, including microfluidic matrix printing, wettability micropatterning, and interfacial nano-adhesion. Upon development, such an array of the microdroplet sensors would enable a highly transformative platform of artificial tactile sensing for a range of medical and robotic applications with high device sensitivity, high spatial resolution and high adaptability.Intellectual Merit: The novel bio-inspired tactile sensing matrix offers several advantages over existing sensing designs, including ultrahigh device sensitivity (the highest sensitivity of 0.12nF/kPa at its dimension), ultrafine spatial resolution (down to 0.5mm), dual pressure-temperature mapping capacity, fast response time (as quick as 1 milliseconds), ultralow profile with packaging (as thin as 100ìm), in addition to its skin-like construct made from all soft materials, e.g., polymers and liquids. Importantly, the interfacial capacitive sensor is highly immune to parasitic capacitance, in which the base capacitance is more than 100 times greater than that of the conventional counterpart. Moreover, the simple device architecture permits mass-production at low cost yet high reliability. Overall, the proposed bio-inspired iontronic sensors, once established, could offer a highly transformative solution to various fundamental and translational fields of neural processing, robotics, medical prosthetics, computer/video gaming, and surgical instruments, where both high flexibility and sensitive responses are demanded.Broader Impacts: Exciting discoveries from the proposed research will be fully integrated with the educational efforts. The PI has been actively promoting education of cutting-edge micro-nanotechnology at all levels. He is actively engaged in disseminating the out-of-cleanroom microfabrication concept by converting consumer electronics into desktop microfabrication tools to the general public through online open-access channels. Through the K-12 educational outreach, the PI will lead an outreach initiative of Introducing Tactile Sensing into K-12 Classroom by turning the research discoveries on the artificial tactile sensing to a plug-and-play demonstration kit for local high-school students. Moreover, education opportunities will be directly provided to underrepresented undergraduate and high-school students on bio-inspired sensing concepts through a NSF-sponsored summer internship program.

目的：人类触觉通过接触或相互作用提供关于环境的广泛信息。受生理触觉功能的启发，该方案旨在利用液滴电解液-电极界面的新型电容传感原理，在柔性和透明的衬底上开发出高灵敏度的触觉阵列。将建立几种非传统的微制造技术来设计这种独特的触觉传感器，包括所有柔性组件，包括微流控矩阵打印、润湿性微图案化和界面纳米粘合。在开发之后，这种微滴传感器阵列将为一系列医疗和机器人应用提供高度变革性的人工触觉传感平台，具有高设备灵敏度、高空间分辨率和高适应性。智能优点：新型生物启发触觉传感矩阵具有几个优于现有传感设计的优势，包括超高设备灵敏度(其维度上的最高灵敏度为0.12nF/kpa)、超细空间分辨率(低至0.5 mm)、双重压力-温度映射能力、快速响应时间(快至1毫秒)、超低外形和封装(薄至100？m)，以及由所有软材料制成的皮肤状结构例如聚合物和液体。重要的是，界面电容传感器对寄生电容具有高度的免疫力，寄生电容的基极电容是传统传感器的100多倍。此外，简单的设备架构允许以低成本和高可靠性进行大规模生产。总体而言，拟议的生物启发离子传感器一旦建立，将为神经处理、机器人、医疗假肢、计算机/视频游戏和手术器械等各种基础和翻译领域提供高度变革性的解决方案，这些领域既需要高灵活性，也需要灵敏的反应。广泛的影响：拟议研究的令人兴奋的发现将完全与教育努力相结合。该协会一直在积极推动各级尖端微纳米技术的教育。他积极致力于通过在线开放渠道将消费电子产品转变为桌面微制造工具，向公众传播无尘室外微制造的概念。通过K-12教育外展，PI将领导将触觉传感引入K-12课堂的外展倡议，将人工触觉传感的研究成果转化为供当地高中生使用的即插即用演示工具包。此外，通过NSF赞助的暑期实习计划，将直接向未被充分代表的本科生和高中生提供生物启发传感概念的教育机会。