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Digital Planet: Bionic Skin

Factual: Science & Nature

The world’s lightest and thinnest flexible sensor system will produce stress-free wearable healthcare sensors

03/09/2013

Bionic Skin

BBC World Service - Digital Planet, Bionic Skin

Prof Takao Someya on how the bionic skin, the e-skin, will connect people to machines

Prof Takao Someya on how the e-skin will connect people to machines. Plus, tagging sharks off Cape Cod and the innovative, electric car sharing scheme to tackle congestion in Paris

A decade ago, Prof Takao Someya and his research group at the University of Tokyo developed a flexible electronic mesh as a glove for a robotic hand. Their dream was to make an electronic skin with various sensors to be worn on the robot. Ten years later they aim to apply the technology to human beings with the desire now for a bionic skin that will be able to monitor an array of medical conditions.  Professor Someya joins Click to discuss the advances in bionic skin technology.

OCEARCH: Global Shark Tracker
Over the past year, OCEARCH, a non-profit shark research project, has been tagging scores of sharks with wireless technologies, collecting data on them.  At least one of the huge sharks was tagged off of Cape Cod and has been monitored up and down the US East Coast and Bermuda. The OCEARCH researchers attach a number of acoustic and satellite tags as well as accelerometers to the sharks, which collect more than eight million data points every day. The founding chairman, Chris Fischer, unveils their plans to expand and share the data.

Autolib
An innovative electric car sharing scheme using an intelligent technological system aims to bring an end to congestion in Paris in an eco-friendly manner. It is a model for the future of cities says Mathieu Lefevre of the New Cities Foundation. The service was launched just under two years ago, and at first the take up was modest. That might in part be explained by the fact that only 66 cars were available. But since then the fleet of Bluecars has expanded towards the target of 3,000 and is attracting a growing number of subscribers. Now that initial teething problems have been ironed out, how are Parisians finding the service? Colin Grant goes for a test drive with Mathieu Lefevre in Paris.

(Photo credit: The world’s lightest and thinnest flexible sensor system will produce stress-free wearable healthcare sensors  ©Someya-Sekitani Group)

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