MIT Builds Soft Sensor Sheet That Reads Shape When Bent or Twisted
A sensor that conforms to the body and reads both bend amount and direction points at motion capture without hard components attached at each joint, and MIT's tests show layout matters more than stiffer hardware.
Reporting from 1 source: GIGAZINE.
Researchers at MIT have built a soft sheet that measures its own surface shape while bent or twisted and reproduces it in 3D on a computer. Light runs through 14 embedded optical waveguides, and sensors read how much light escapes as the sheet deforms. The prototype measures 160 mm by 160 mm by 5 mm. The team sees uses in games, VR, robot remote control, and rehabilitation.
The sheet's core is a transparent rubber waveguide wrapped in a black-pigmented outer layer, with an LED at one end and a light sensor at the other. Roughening one side of the core makes the light loss differ between bending toward the rough side and bending toward the smooth side, which lets the system read direction as well as amount.
Fourteen waveguides, arranged as seven by two layers and set in a zigzag pattern, feed an algorithm that estimates the whole sheet's shape. In simulations across six shapes, diagonal placement of the waveguides improved accuracy more than adding more of them.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.