A Penny Touch!

Here is the scenario - Just imagine a robot's hand touching your body and massaging gently without really giving you some acute pain or anything of that sort! Or A robot trying to do heart transplant - Like Neo's hands working on Trinity's hearts in 'The Matrix Reloaded':)! Quite a possibility in the future and researchers have moved an inch closer to that reality!

So, here is the research and invention topic of today - The robot fingers & hands are coated with a special film which can make them feel the surface they are touching!

Their new film is made of alternating layers of gold and semiconducting cadmium-sulfur nanoparticles separated by nonconducting, or dielectric, films.
--ABC

This film is ElectroLuminescent - Film will glow once it touches a layer based on the texture & pressure. The light can be used as a signal source that can be interpreted into pictures via specialized cameras which in turn can help in understanding the characteristics of the layer that is being "felt". Wow!

How effectively can this idea be used? As the researchers have shown it with their "Penny Touch" experiment (Image from CBC News)-

A US penny produced an image detailed enough to show the wrinkles in the clothing of Abraham Lincoln, who is pictured on the coin, and the letters "TY" in "LIBERTY".
--ABC

- they are also pretty much sure that this technique can be used for monitoring & controlling the movement of the robot arms in some very delicate human surgeries using small tools for some remote inaccessible locations! Not bad for a great foresight!

With all the needed funds available in America and with more & more brains draining away from Asian countries to US, I would like to see innovations and progress in such technological inventions happen at a greater pace! Ahnn... I'm not changing topic. Actually, this is related. Ain't it, always good to see the names of proving Indians, like in this case Vivek Maheshwari and Prof. Ravi Saraf from Chemical Engineering Department, University of Nebraska?