Imagine giving a robot a nervous system like human skin that can feel both a touch and a nearby object before it even hits. This allows the robot to slow down or move away automatically, making it safe to work right next to a person. It's like replacing bulky safety fences with a built-in sense of touch and proximity.
Industrial robots usually require expensive, static safety fences to protect humans, which limits shopfloor flexibility and increases installation costs.
A distributed proximity and tactile sensor system (ProxySkin) and a patented optical sensor (OptoSkin) with accompanying software for gesture recognition and action prediction.
If you are a car assembly plant dealing with dynamic environments where humans and robots share space — this project developed a proxy-tactile sensing system that allows for safe cooperative assembly tasks. This reduces the need for expensive safety fences and minimizes setup time.
If you are a warehouse automation provider dealing with large-object handling and packaging — this project developed whole-arm manipulation capabilities using ProxySkin. This enables robots to handle bulky items more flexibly and safely.
If you are an agri-tech equipment manufacturer dealing with outdoor grape harvesting and unmodeled obstacles — this project developed sensorized exoskeletons. This allows robots to operate in unpredictable outdoor environments while maintaining safety.
Based on available project data, the technology reduces robot setup times and costs by removing the need for out-of-the-robot safety infrastructure.
The project focused on scalable manufacturing of large-area distributed sensors and developed cost-effective components like OptoSkin.
The project resulted in a patented optical-based tactile sensing technology called OptoSkin.
It uses a multimodal middleware for real-time data acquisition and robot control via EtherCAT and real-time wireless systems.
The project period is from 2022-10-01 to 2025-09-30, indicating it is currently in the final stages of development and testing.
The consortium consists of 14 partners across 10 countries, showing a strong European research reach. While heavily academic with 7 universities and 5 research centers, it includes 2 industrial partners (14% industry ratio), ensuring that the developed sensing technologies are aligned with actual shopfloor needs in automotive and logistics.
Contact the Università degli Studi di Genova
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