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Miniature sensor replicates human touch
A group of researchers have created a millimeter sized sensor that is capable of recreating a number of our tactile abilities, such as force and position of contact, softness of a grasped object, and slippage. The technology -- which utilizes polystyrene beams that bend when put in contact with a soft surface -- might be able to assist doctors in performing minimally invasive surgery (or MIS) by adding additional force-feedback information from the subject (up until now, surgeons have had to rely heavily on visual data transmitted from an endoscope). The tiny sensors could be micromachined (a type of integrated circuit manufacture), and would thus be simple and cost effective to fabricate for medical uses. The next stages will be further miniaturization, integration with MIS tools, and animal tissue testing.
