A soft optical sensor network distributed within a soft body measures the location and degree of deformation. Whereas vision dominates sensing in robots, animals with limited vision deftly navigate their environment using other forms of perception, such as touch. Efforts have been made to apply artificial skins with tactile sensing to robots for similarly sophisticated mobile and manipulative skills. The ability to functionally mimic the afferent sensory neural network, required for distributed sensing and communication networks throughout the body, is still missing. This limitation is partially due to the lack of cointegration of the mechanosensors in the body of the robot. Here, lacings of stretchable optical fibers distributed throughout 3D-printed elastomer frameworks created a cointegrated body, sensing, and communication network. This soft, functional structure could localize deformation with submillimeter positional accuracy (error of 0.71 millimeter) and sub-Newton force resolution (~0.3 newton).

中文翻译：

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用于合成传入神经网络的光学花边

分布在软体内的软光学传感器网络测量变形的位置和程度。虽然视觉在机器人的感知中占主导地位，但视力有限的动物却可以利用其他形式的感知（例如触摸）巧妙地在环境中导航。人们已经努力将具有触觉感知的人造皮肤应用于机器人，以实现同样复杂的移动和操纵技能。功能上模仿传入感觉神经网络的能力仍然缺乏，而这是全身分布式传感和通信网络所需的。这种限制部分是由于机器人体内机械传感器缺乏协整。在这里，分布在整个 3D 打印弹性体框架中的可拉伸光纤系带创建了一个协整的身体、传感和通信网络。这种柔软的功能性结构可以以亚毫米位置精度（误差为 0.71 毫米）和亚牛顿力分辨率（~0.3 牛顿）来定位变形。