Intelligent skin for near-field sensing in robotics
Specific physical human-robot interactions are increasingly required in the manufacturing industry, the professional service sector, and healthcare
This necessitates improvements in comfort and convenience as well as in communication between humans and machines. Robots need to be able to predict human actions and recognize intentions. And that calls for flexible metamaterials, and more specifically, flat metasurface antennas with highly integrated electronics that allow for sensing of the near environment. The Fraunhofer Institute for High Frequency Physics and Radar Techniques FHR has teamed up with six partners in the EU’s FITNESS project to develop these kinds of surfaces, which cover a robot like an adaptive, intelligent skin. The idea is that robots equipped with metasurface antennas will be able to scan their near-field environment with greater accuracy and communicate more effectively with their base station in the far field.
When developing human-machine interactions, worker safety is paramount. This is where the EU’s FITNESS (Flexible IntelligenT NEarfield Sensing Skins) project comes in. The project aims to optimize communication and interaction between humans and machines through intelligent antenna solutions in the form of innovative electromagnetic metamaterial surfaces with integrated electronics. The flexible, stretchable metasurface antenna, which are suitable for emitting surface waves, are expected to scan their near-field surroundings much more effectively than conventional antennas, thereby improving both human safety and the robots’ own performance. Six other partners from industry and the research sector are working on the project with Fraunhofer FHR: the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), eV-Technologies, Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), Université catholique de Louvain (UCLouvain), University of Zagreb Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing, and L-up. The project is being coordinated by UCLouvain, in Belgium, and is being funded by the European Union under GA No. 101098996.
Intelligent antenna skin with sensory and communicative functions
The metasurface antennas are flat antennas integrated into film-like substrates that adapt to the robot’s contours. Thanks to their flat structure, these antennas can bend and stretch, wrapping around the robot like a skin. Alternatively, and depending on the application, they can also be positioned only on the robot arm, for example. That is how they came to be called “smart skins.” “What makes our future antenna solution special is that it can scan the near-field environment and detect movement while also being proficient at radio-based communication with the base station on the shop floor,” says Andrej Konforta, 3D-Print HF Systems group manager at Fraunhofer FHR. “No other solution like it exists on the market so far.” …. read further
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