Hapticity

Man, would I ever love to get ahold of one of these tactile sensors developed for the Shadow Robot Company. Responding to pressure ranging between 0.1 N and 25 N using a quantum tunneling composite material, each sensor has up to 34 individual sensing units, on-board digital signal conditioning, and is the size of a human fingertip. I would bet that this sensor could be used to crudely model the non-pacinian 3 (np3) psychophysical sensory channel, which constructs an acute neural image of skin deformation.

A development kit is available for £1450, which includes one sensor and some interfacing materials. That’s a bit out of my range, but if someone from Shadow is reading this, I will give you free publicity if you send me a sample!

(via aiGuru)