Volkswagen says it will unveil autonomous minibus next year


The classic minibus is seen at an event at the 2016 International CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nev., on January 5, 2016. File Photo by Molly Riley/UPI | License Photo

March 1 (UPI) -- After years of a rumored return, Volkswagen's iconic minibus took a step closer to becoming a reality Monday -- and the automaker said it will be a self-driving vehicle.

The minibus, which will be called the ID Buzz, is a small van that will use autonomous driving software from Argo AI, which Volkswagen and Ford have teamed up to support. Argo AI specializes in software platforms for autonomous driving.

Volkswagen said the ID Buzz will be unveiled next year. CEO Scott Keogh told Automotive News the vehicle could be available for sale in the United States by 2023.

"Autonomous, electric driving will make an important contribution to urban mobility and road safety," Carsten Intra, CEO of Volkswagen Commercial Vehicles, said in a statement.

"Our vehicles are the logical first choice to apply such systems to."

Christian Senger, Volkswagen head of autonomous driving, said the company will perform field trials this year for the vehicle in Germany.

Volkswagen said the ID Buzz will be an all-electric vehicle geared toward a ride-hailing and pooling concept. Senger said select riders in select cities will be able to ride the van to their destination autonomously by 2025.

Volkswagen announced a partnership with Ford last summer to collaborate on numerous projects, including the development of electric cars, self-driving technology and commercial vehicles with Argo AI, for which they plan to spend more than $4 billion through 2023.

The ID Buzz made its debut as a concept vehicle at the 2017 Detroit Auto Show.

Volvo says all of its vehicles will be electric, sold online by 2030


Also Tuesday, Volvo debuted its second fully electric car, 

dubbed the C40 Recharge. 

File Photo by Brian Kersey/UPI | License Photo


March 2 (UPI) -- Volvo announced on Tuesday that all of its new vehicles will be fully electric and sold exclusively online by the end of the decade.

Volvo said its plan will phase out all vehicles with internal combustion engines, including hybrids, by 2030. The automaker said the goal is for electric vehicles to comprise 50% of its global sales and the other half hybrids by 2025.

"We are fully focused on becoming a leader in the fast-growing premium electric car market," Volvo CEO Hakan Samuelsson said in a statement.

"There is no long-term future for cars with an internal combustion engine," added Volvo Chief Technology Officer Henrik Green. "[This] will allow us to meet the expectations of our customers and be a part of the solution when it comes to fighting climate change."

The XC40 Recharge, Volvo's first full electric car, debuted last year in markets worldwide.

Also Tuesday, Volvo debuted its second fully electric car, the C40 Recharge.

"Instead of investing in a shrinking business, we choose to invest in the future -- electric and online," Samuelsson added.

Last month, Jaguar and Land Rover announced plans to transition to all electric vehicles by 2025.

Interior Department promises $260M

 for coal communities


Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., is shown speaking during her Senate confirmation hearing on February 23. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., said he will support her nomination. Photo by Jim Watson/UPI | License Photo

March 1 (UPI) -- The Biden administration announced Monday more than $260 million available to assist communities struggling with the decreased demand for coal.

The Interior Department said more than $152.22 million is now available through the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act's Abandoned Mine Land grant program. The department said it will also distribute $115 million through the Abandoned Mine Land Economic Revitalization grant program.


"The Abandoned Mine Land grant programs provide an important opportunity to revitalize local economies, support jobs and address environmental impacts to communities from these legacy developments," the Interior Department's Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Laura Daniel Davis said in a statement.

Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., chair of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, said there is still "much work to be done" to clean up damage to lands and water in communities negatively affected by coal mining.

"I will be reintroducing legislation to extend the AML fee, which is currently set to expire in September, to ensure this important reclamation work can continue without interruption," Manchin said. "I am also glad that West Virginia will receive $25 million through the AML Economic Revitalization grant program, which provides additional funding for economic development projects on abandoned mind lands."

In the meantime, Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., has faced scrutiny in her bid to become the first Native American secretary of the Interior Department.

Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., announced Monday that he will support Haaland, a member of the Laguna Pueblo tribe.

RELATED 'Missing and murdered:' Indigenous women at risk in U.S., Canada

"I am committed to working with Rep. Haaland, Republicans and Democrats on policies that help our state's economy grow, honor our outdoor heritage, and ensure that the federal government lives up to its treaty obligations to Arizona's tribal communities," Kelly said in a statement.

Haaland faced two days of intense questioning from Republicans on issues ranging from her views on fossil fuels to past Twitter posts she wrote about Republicans.

Study: 30,000 deaths in U.S. during pandemic linked to unemployment

By Amy Norton, HealthDay News


New research suggests roughly 30,000 people have died because of unemployment during the coronavirus pandemic, which also has increased the number of people lining up at food banks across the country. File Photo by Terry Schmitt/UPI | License Photo

With U.S. deaths from COVID-19 passing the grim milestone of a half-million, a new study suggests that another 30,000-plus Americans have died due to pandemic-related unemployment.

Using various data sources, researchers estimated that number of deaths between April 2020 and March 2021 could be attributed to pandemic-fueled job losses.


And in a pattern that's been repeatedly seen, Black Americans bore a disproportionate burden: Although they make up 12% of the U.S. population, they accounted for 19% of the unemployment-related deaths.

The findings are published in the April issue of the American Journal of Public Health.

Researchers said that while 30,000 is a small number relative to the toll of COVID-19 itself, it's also just one measure of the health impact of pandemic-related unemployment.

"I think there will be a ripple effect that we see for years," said study co-author Kate Duchowny, a researcher at the University of California, San Francisco.

In the near term, she said, widespread unemployment can affect death rates for various reasons -- including lost access to health care and increases in suicides and substance abuse.

But Duchowny said the repercussions could take years to manifest fully: If people skipped care for existing health conditions because they lost insurance or income, what are the long-term effects? If people didn't get cancer screenings, or had delayed diagnoses of other conditions, what will the consequences be down the road?

Stan Dorn is director of the National Center for Coverage Innovation at Families USA, a nonpartisan health care advocacy organization.


He agreed that the full scope of the crisis will take time to understand.

Last April, as COVID-19 surges sparked lockdowns in much of the United States, the national unemployment rate hit a record 14.7%, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For many, that also meant their health insurance disappeared.

Last July, Families USA estimated that 5.4 million laid-off workers had become uninsured between February and May 2020.

Losing health insurance in the middle of a pandemic, Dorn said, is clearly bad for individuals. But it's also a public health threat, he added, as people may delay COVID testing or care for potential symptoms.

Unemployment figures have improved since the peak last April. In January, the employment rate stood at 6.3%, according to the BLS. But that is still well above the pre-pandemic level of 3.5%.

A body of research has shown that unemployment increases the risk of death, according to Duchowny. Calculating the number of deaths linked to pandemic job losses is difficult, however.

To begin to get a handle on it, the UCSF researchers used several sources: a published analysis of previous studies on the risk of death associated with unemployment; BLS unemployment figures, and death data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

Their "best estimate," Duchowny said, is that 30,231 deaths can so far be attributed to pandemic unemployment.

But considering different scenarios, the researchers found that the numbers could range from a low of 8,300 to almost 202,000.

It's hard to gauge, for instance, whether the health toll of unemployment during this pandemic -- and the many stresses it has brought -- would be different compared with other time periods, Duchowny said.

The researchers also found that along with Black Americans, less-educated Americans have likely been disproportionately affected: People with a high school education or less accounted for 72% of the estimated deaths.

Both groups have suffered a high rate of job loss.

These are people, Duchowny said, who have borne a "double burden" of being hard-hit by both COVID-19 and the economic fallout of the pandemic.

Some relief is in sight. Dorn said the $1.9 trillion stimulus bill moving through Congress has some vital provisions for Americans who lack health insurance.

They include federal assistance to help people buy insurance, he said, plus "major incentives" for states to expand their Medicaid programs to more residents.

"Job No. 1 is to minimize the impact [of unemployment] now," Dorn said. But, he added, "these are short-term emergency measures."

Ultimately, Dorn said, the lessons of the pandemic should lead to long-term changes in the U.S. health care system.

"Infectious disease experts have long said the U.S. would be vulnerable during a pandemic," Dorn noted.

One reason, he said, is because it is the only large, wealthy country without universal health care.More information

HealthCare.gov has resources for finding health insurance.

Copyright 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
(0) Leave a comment

upi.com/7079025

Aung San Suu Kyi seen for 1st time in Myanmar since military takeover


Demonstrators set up barriers during a protest in Mandalay, Myanmar, on Sunday opposing the military's government takeover on February 1. 

Photo by Xiao Long/UPI | License Photo

March 1 (UPI) -- The Myanmar military filed two new criminal charges Monday against detained civilian leader Aung San Suu Kyi, on the one-month anniversary of the coup that removed her and the president from power.

One of the new charges says Suu Kyi violated a law that makes it illegal to repeat "any statement, rumor or report" that will likely induce the public to "commit an offense against the state." The second blames her for using restricted communication equipment without a license.

Both charges were announced at a remote video hearing Monday, at which Suu Kyi made her first public appearance since the Feb. 1 military takeover.

"She said at the hearing that she wanted to meet with her lawyer," Min Min Soe, a member of Suu Kyi legal team, told Myanmar Now. "The judge told her that he is working on it.

RELATED Myanmar police crack down on protests; U.N. ambassador denounces coup

Ousted Myanmar President Win Myint was also charged for making illegal statements.

The new charges add to the case against Suu Kyi. Previously, she'd been charged with violating a disaster management law by interacting with a crowd and import violations for possessing two-way radios.

The charges came a day after the United Nations condemned the military junta's violence against protesters. Nearly two dozen were killed on Sunday in demonstrations nationwide.

"The people of Myanmar have the right to assemble peacefully and demand the restoration of democracy," U.N. Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said in a statement. "These fundamental rights must be respected by the military and police, not met with violent and bloody repression.

"Use of lethal force against non-violent demonstrators is never justifiable under international human rights norms."

The United Nations, United States and several other nations have condemned the military's takeover in Myanmar, which was based on the claim that parliamentary elections last fall were fraudulent. Suu Kyi's party picked up great gains in the election.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/World-News/2021/03/01/myanmar-aung-san-suu-kyi-new-charges-coup/9511614599908/

New Kim Jong Un biography spotlights Singapore Summit with Trump


A new North Korean biography of Kim Jong Un mentions Kim's summit with former U.S. President Donald Trump (R) but makes no references to South Korean President Moon Jae-in. File Photo from Pool TV/UPI | License Photo


March 1 (UPI) -- North Korea published a 621-page biography of Kim Jong Un that highlighted nuclear weapons development and the U.S.-North Korea summit in Singapore but downplayed the role of South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

North Korean propaganda service Uriminzokkiri on Sunday published the entire book for public viewing in an article that claimed Kim was a "great man" who ushered in an era of great power for the regime.

The hardcover publication from Pyongyang Publishing included sections on Kim's defense policy and diplomacy, the economy, society and culture.

"Nearly 10 years have passed since Marshal Kim Jong Un was recognized as supreme leader," Uriminzokkiri said. "In these quickly passing days, the republic has risen to distant heights."

Kim's early years were marked by isolation and refusal to meet with U.S. negotiators.

The book, first published Dec. 30, cited Kim's summit with former President Donald Trump as the greatest achievement, with 15 pages devoted exclusively to the 2018 Singapore Summit and the informal summit with Trump at Panmunjom in 2019, according to South Korean paper Herald Business.

"Courtesy of our Marshal [Kim], the powerhouse of the century, the political perception and dynamics of the international community are undergoing transformation," the North Korean book said.

RELATED North Korea's informal loan networks can lead to gang violence, research says


The book, which includes no photographs, made no mention of Moon. The South Korean president has been credited with persuading Trump to meet with Kim in 2018, and met with Kim at Panmunjom in April 2018 before Trump had committed to a summit.

According to Herald Business, the book did briefly mention the September Pyongyang Joint Declaration -- an inter-Korean statement signed in 2018.

North Korea remains isolated amid the pandemic, but international aid groups say assistance continues despite recent reports.

RELATED North Korea has at least eight ICBMs, think tank says


Steve Taravella, a senior spokesman for the World Food Program, said last week that the agency has not stopped delivering aid to North Korea, Ethnic Media Services reported Sunday.

The WFP had previously said in a revision to its North Korea Strategic Plan that "residual risk" remains and operations could be suspended in 2021.

CHRISTIANITY IS MISOGYNY

South Korean pastor accused of calling women followers 'prostitutes'

Jun said women in his congregation are like sex workers because they had "already spent the night with Satan."


The Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, former chief of the Christian Council of Korea,

 is accused with making sexist remarks during sermons.

 File Photo by Yonhap/EPA-EFE

March 1 (UPI) -- A South Korean church leader who tested positive for COVID-19 last year is coming under fire for allegedly describing the women in his congregation and in the Bible as "prostitutes."

The women's committee of the National Council of Churches in Korea said Monday that the Rev. Jun Kwang-hoon, pastor of Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul, had said all the women in Jesus's family tree were sex workers. The council said it condemns the statement, Hankyoreh reported

According to the group, Jun said the Virgin Mary was "unmarried" and all the other women in Jesus' genealogy were prostitutes.

Jun also said women in his congregation are like sex workers because they had "already spent the night with Satan."

RELATED South Korean President Moon Jae-in calls for improved ties with Japan

"Jun Kwang-hoon has distorted the essence of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the church community, through misleading interpretations of the Bible," the group said. "Jun continues to pour out embarrassing words and false remarks."

Last year, Jun was briefly jailed after being denied bail. Jun was charged with violating social distancing guidelines after his church became the source of South Korea's second-largest coronavirus outbreak.

Jun's misogynistic remarks also may have addressed the issue of "comfort women" forced to serve in Japanese wartime brothels. Jun reportedly said during his sermon brothels are "inevitable" during war.

The council of churches has called on Jun to apologize to former comfort women and to cease all religious activities.

The South Korean cleric previously accused President Moon Jae-in of lying to the public, and he called Moon a "communist" without evidence.

On Monday, Jun again denounced Moon as a "lunatic" while followers demanded the president's resignation during an outdoor gathering without facemasks, Oh My News reported.

Speaking at the same rally, Cho Na-dan, a pastor and a colleague of Jun, condemned North Korea's Kim Jong Un and called him a "young fat pig."

"Let's boil the pig and eat him with shrimp!" Cho said, according to Oh My News.

Jun and Cho have publicly protested the Moon administration. Jun has been charged previously with violation of local election laws and using bribes to recruit followers.

WAR IS RAPE

North Korea slams Harvard Law professor for 'comfort women' article


North Korea addressed the issue of a controversial "comfort women" article on Monday, weeks after Harvard Law professor J. Mark Ramseyer came under criticism for his characterization of former victims of wartime brothels. 

File Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo


March 2 (UPI) -- North Korea condemned a Harvard Law professor and his article on "comfort women" in a television documentary that addressed Japan's wartime crimes and featured an alleged descendant of a former victim.

Korea Central Television on Monday aired the film that included denouncements of J. Mark Ramseyer, the Mitsubishi professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School, as a "pseudo-scholar" with a "pro-Japanese bias."

The documentary featured previously released footage, including a South Korean interview with Park Yeong-sim, a comfort woman who passed away in 2006. In the interview, Park says a Japanese policeman wearing a red cap coerced her to follow him "to make some money."

The North Korean film also included an interview with a North Korean man identified as Jong Yun Chol. Jong claimed he is Park's grandson. Park lived in the South until the time of her death.

RELATED Activists call for boycott of Mitsubishi amid 'comfort women' uproar

"My grandmother passed away without receiving an apology or compensation from the Japanese government," Jong said in the North Korean program.

State media rarely reports on developments outside the country but has previously covered news related to Japan's colonial past.

Ramseyer's paper has come under criticism at Harvard, where the Undergraduate Council voted to endorse a statement that described the article, "Contracting for Sex in the Pacific War," as "contrafactual," according to the Harvard Crimson on Monday.

RELATED Harvard professor's paper on Kanto Massacre angers South Koreans

Professors at Harvard have also condemned Ramseyer's paper.

"As historians of Japan and Korea, what initially appalled us was Ramseyer's elision of the larger political and economic contexts of colonialism and gender in which the comfort women system was conceived and implemented, and the multiple and brutal ways in which it affected and afflicted the women on a human scale," wrote Andrew Gordon and Carter Eckert.

Gordon and Eckert said Ramseyer failed to find evidence of contracts concluded in Korea with Korean women. Ramseyer used "barmaid" contracts with Japanese women as a substitute source to build his argument about Korean victims of wartime brothels, Gordon and Eckert said.

Activists call for boycott of Mitsubishi 

amid 'comfort women' uproar


Activists are calling for a boycott of Mitsubishi products as controversy grows over an article about "comfort women" by Harvard Law professor J. Mark Ramseyer. File Photo by John G. Mabanglo/EPA-EFE

March 1 (UPI) -- Online activists are calling for the boycott of Mitsubishi products less than a month after a Harvard law professor came under criticism for his article on "comfort women."

Korean Americans affiliated with community groups in California said in the statement on Change.org that they are calling for a comprehensive boycott of products from the Japanese company to protest J. Mark Ramseyer, South Korean news service News 1 reported Monday

Ramseyer is the Mitsubishi professor of Japanese legal studies at Harvard Law School.

"Please join us in boycotting all Mitsubishi products, including but not limited to vehicles, TVs, and electronic parts, as well as AC and HVAC systems," the statement read.

"To continue to patronize Mitsubishi would be to give tacit endorsement to the outrageous and insulting claims made by Prof. Ramseyer, who occupies the chair endowed by the Mitsubishi Corporation."

In an article that published online by the International Review of Law and Economics, Ramseyer had said that comfort women, many of them teenage girls, took part in a "consenting, contractual process."

Ramseyer has said he did not cite any Korean sources for the paper. Victims have said they were raped daily and beaten in brothels and witnessed the death of women who fell ill from disease or exhaustion.



The petition, which collected more than 1,000 signatures Monday, is being circulated at a time when other Korean American groups are raising awareness about the issue.

Baik-kyu Kim, chair of the Atlanta Comfort Women Memorial Task Force in Georgia, recently held a rally condemning Ramseyer.

Heather Fenton, mother of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, D-Ga., took part in the rally in Atlanta, South Korean television network JTBC reported Monday.

The Korean American Society of Massachusetts also said it plans to hold a rally on Saturday outside Harvard University.

Harvard Law students previously have said Ramseyer ignored important research that indicates the women were coerced or kidnapped by agents of the Japanese government during World War II.

Senate Democrats introduce proposal 

for 3% tax on billionaires

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and other Democrats introduced the "Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act" which would implement a 3% tax on wealth exceeding $1 billion. Pool Photo by Greg Nash/UPI | License Photo

March 1 (UPI) -- Democratic lawmakers led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren introduced a proposal Monday to implement a 3% tax on wealth greater than $1 billion.

The "Ultra-Millionaire Tax Act" would implement a 2% annual tax on the net worth of households and trusts ranging from $50 million to $1 billion and an additional 1% annual surtax -- for an overall tax of 3% -- for those exceeding $1 billion.


"The ultra-rich and powerful have rigged the rules in their favor so much that the top 0.1% pay a lower effective tax rate than the bottom 99% and billionaire wealth is 40% higher than before the COVID crisis began," Warren, D-Mass., said.

An analysis by economists at the University of California, Berkeley found that about 100,000 Americans or fewer than 1 in 1,000 families would be subject to the wealth tax in 2023 and that it would raise about $3 trillion over between 2023 and 2032.

RELATED Head of IMF fears COVID-19 crisis will further widen wealth gap


"Wealth at the top has boomed during the COVID crisis. Billionaires wealth has literally exploded while many Americans struggle with job and income loss," University of California-Berkeley economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman said. "The ultra-millionaire wealth tax is the most direct and powerful tool to curb growing wealth concentration in the U.S. and make sure the ultra-wealthy pay their fair share in taxes."

The bill would also invest $100 billion to rebuild and strengthen IRS systems and personnel, ensure a 30% audit rate for the super wealthy and impose a 40% exit tax on Americans who attempt to renounce their citizenship to avoid a wealth tax.

In addition to Warren, the bill is co-sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; Jeff Merkley, D-Ore.; Kristen Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Edward Markey, D-Mass. and Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii.

Novel soft tactile sensor with skin-comparable characteristics for robots

CITY UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

Research News

VIDEO: THE ROBOTIC GRIPPER CAN STABLY GRASP AN EGG EVEN THOUGH THE EXPERIMENTER TRIED TO DRAG IT DOWN. AND WHEN THE EXPERIMENTER STOPS DRAGGING, THE ROBOTIC GRIPPER CAN ADJUST THE MAGNITUDE... view more 

CREDIT: PROVIDED BY DR SHEN'S TEAM

A joint research team co-led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has developed a new soft tactile sensor with skin-comparable characteristics. A robotic gripper with the sensor mounted at the fingertip could accomplish challenging tasks such as stably grasping fragile objects and threading a needle. Their research provided new insight into tactile sensor design and could contribute to various applications in the robotics field, such as smart prosthetics and human-robot interaction.

Dr Shen Yajing, Associate Professor at CityU's Department of Biomedical Engineering (BME) was one of the co-leaders of the study. The findings have been recently published in the scientific journal Science Robotics, titled "Soft magnetic skin for super-resolution tactile sensing with force self-decoupling".

Mimicking human skin characteristics

A main characteristic of human skin is its ability to sense the shear force, meaning the force that makes two objects slip or slide over each other when coming into contact. By sensing the magnitude, direction and the subtle change of shear force, our skin can act as feedback and allow us to adjust how we should hold an object stably with our hands and fingers or how tight we should grasp it.

To mimick this important feature of human skin, Dr Shen and Dr Pan Jia, a collaborator from the University of Hong Kong (HKU), have developed a novel, soft tactile sensor. The sensor is in a multi-layered structure like human skin and includes a flexible and specially magnetised film of about 0.5mm thin as the top layer. When an external force is exerted on it, it can detect the change of the magnetic field due to the film's deformation. More importantly, it can "decouple", or decompose, the external force automatically into two components - normal force (the force applied perpendicularly to the object) and shear force, providing the accurate measurement of these two forces respectively.

"It is important to decouple the external force because each force component has its own influence on the object. And it is necessary to know the accurate value of each force component to analyse or control the stationary or moving state of the object," explained Yan Youcan, PhD student at BME and the first author of the paper.

CAPTION

The bottle is stably held in the gripper with the force feedback from the tactile sensor during the process of liquid filling. On the other hand, the bottle slips during liquid filling without force feedback.

Deep learning enhanced accuracy

Moreover, the senor possesses another human skin-like characteristic - the tactile "super-resolution" that allows it to locate the stimuli's position as accurate as possible. "We have developed an efficient tactile super-resolution algorithm using deep learning and achieved a 60-fold improvement of the localisation accuracy for contact position, which is the best among super-resolution methods reported so far," said Dr Shen. Such an efficient tactile super-resolution algorithm can help improve the physical resolution of a tactile sensor array with the least number of sensing units, thus reducing the number of wirings and the time required for signal transmitting.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first tactile sensor that achieved self-decoupling and super-resolution abilities simultaneously," he added.

Robotic hand with the new sensor completes challenging tasks

By mounting the sensor at the fingertip of a robotic gripper, the team showed that robots can accomplish challenging tasks. For example, the robotic gripper stably grasped fragile objects like an egg while an external force trying to drag it away, or threaded a needle via teleoperation. "The super-resolution of our sensor helps the robotic hand to adjust the contact position when it grasps an object. And the robotic arm can adjust force magnitude based on the force decoupling ability of the tactile sensor," explained Dr Shen.

He added that the sensor can be easily extended to the form of sensor arrays or even continuous electronic skin that covers the whole body of the robot in the future. The sensitivity and measurement range of the sensor can be adjusted by changing the magnetisation direction of the top layer (magnetic film) of the sensor without changing the sensor's thickness. This enabled the e-skin to have different sensitivity and measurement range in different parts, just like human skin.

Also, the sensor has a much shorter fabrication and calibration processes compared with other tactile sensors, facilitating the actual applications.

"This proposed sensor could be beneficial to various applications in the robotics field, such as adaptive grasping, dextrous manipulation, texture recognition, smart prosthetics and human-robot interaction. The advancement of soft artificial tactile sensors with skin-comparable characteristics can make domestic robots become part of our daily life," concluded Dr Shen.

CAPTION

The sensor enables teleoperated needle threading.

Dr Shen and Dr Pan are the corresponding authors of the paper. CityU team members include PhD students Yan Youcan and Hu Zhe from BME and Dr Yang Zhengbao, Assistant Professor from the Department of Mechanical Engineering. Other collaborating researchers are from Carnegie Mellon University and the Southern University of Science and Technology.

The research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China, Hong Kong Research Grant Council and Shenzhen (China) Key Basic Research Project.

https://www.cityu.edu.hk/research/stories/2021/03/01/novel-soft-tactile-sensor-skin-comparable-characteristics-robots