ROBOTS WHERE YOU DON’T EXPECT THEM

Having touched above on the technologies that will give us a new generation of robotics, let us now examine how these robots may appear in our lives and how we will interact, and live, with them.

Smart Skins

The compliance of soft robotics makes them ideally suited for direct interaction with biological tissue. The soft-soft interactions of robots and human are inherently much safer than a hard-soft interface imposed by conventional rigid robots. There has been much work on smart materials for direct skin-to-skin contact and for integration on the human skin, including electrical connections and electronic components (Kim et al., 2011). A functional soft robotic second skin can offer many advantages beyond conventional clothing. For example, it may mimic the color-changing abilities of the cephalopods (Morin et al., 2012), or it may be able to translocate fluids like the teleost fishes (Rossiter et al., 2012) and thereby regulate temperature. The natural extension of such skins lies in smart bandages to promote healing and to reduce the spread of microbial resistance bacteria by reducing the need for antibiotics. Of course, skins can substitute for clothing, but we are some way from social acceptance of second-skins as a replacement for conventional clothing. If, on the other hand, we exploit fibrous soft actuation technologies such as the nylon coil actuator and shape memory alloy-polymer composites (Rossiter et al., 2014), we can weave artificial muscles into fabric. This yields the possibility of active and reactive clothing. Such smart garments also offer a unique new facility: because the smart material is in direct contact with the skin, and it has actuation capabilities, it can directly mechanically stimulate the skin. In this way we can integrate tactile communication into clothing. The tactile communication channel has largely been left behind by the other senses. Take, for example, the modern smartphone; it has high bandwidth in both visual and auditory outputs but almost non-existent touch stimulating capabilities. With touch-enabled clothing we can generate natural “affective” senses of touch, giving us a potentially revolutionary new communication channel. Instead of a coarse vibrating motor (as used in mobile phones) we can stroke, tickle, or otherwise impart pleasant tactile feelings (Knoop and Rossiter, 2015).

Robots As Assist Devices

If the smart clothing above is able to generate larger forces it can be used not just for communication but also for physical support. For people who are frail, disabled, or elderly a future solution will be in the form of power-assist clothing that will restore mobility. Restoring mobility can have a great impact on the quality of life of the wearer and may even enable them to return to productive life, thereby helping the wider economy. The challenge with such a proposition is in the power density of the actuation technologies within the assist device. If the wearer is weak, for example because they have lost muscle mass, they will need significant extra power, but the weight of this supplementary power could be prohibitively expensive. Therefore the assist device should be as light and comfortable as possible, with actuation having a power density significantly higher than biological muscles. This is currently beyond the state-of-the-art. Ultimately wearable assist devices will make conventional assist devices redundant. Why use a wheel chair if you can walk again by wearing soft robotic Power Pants?

Robots As Medical Devices

We can extend the bio-integration as exemplified by the wearable devices described above into the body. Because soft robotics is so suitable for interaction with biological tissue it is natural to think of a device that can be implanted into the body and which can interact physically with internal structures. We can then build implantable medical robots that can restore the functionality of diseased and damaged organs and structures. Take, for example, soft tissue cancer that can affect organs ranging from the bowels and prostate to the larynx and trachea. In these diseases a typical treatment involves the surgical excision of the cancer and management of the resulting condition. A patient with laryngeal cancer may have a laryngectomy and thereafter will be unable to speak and must endure a permanent tracheostomy. By developing and implanting a soft robotic replacement organ we may restore functional capabilities and enable the patient to once again speak, swallow, cough and enjoy their lives. Such bio-integrating robots is under development and expected to appear in the clinic over the next ten to fifteen years.