로봇공학과 메타버스를 이끌 웨어러블 디바이스의 미래 기술이 등장했다. 나노미터 단위의 전도성 그물 망사를 활용해 손의 움직임을 감지하고, 인공지능 기술을 더해 가상공간에서의 작업 가능성을 입증한 연구성과가 발표돼 주목을 받고 있다.
▲Professor Cho Seong-ho of Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Photo - Ministry of Science and ICT)
Intelligent electronic skin, published in Nature Electronics
Conductive mesh human movement measurement and AI learning
The future technology of wearable devices that will lead robotics and the metaverse has emerged. Research results that use nanometer-sized conductive mesh to detect hand movements and add artificial intelligence technology to prove the possibility of working in virtual space have been announced and are attracting attention.
The Ministry of Science and ICT (MSIT) announced on the 29th that the research team of Professor Cho Seong-ho from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Professor Koh Seung-hwan from Seoul National University, and Professor Zhenan Bao from Stanford University succeeded in developing intelligent electronic skin for the first time in the world.
The results of this study, which was conducted with the support of the Ministry of Science and ICT's basic research project, were published in the international academic journal 'Nature Electronics' on the 28th (local time).
Electronic skin is a device that uses hard electronic components in a flexible and stretchable form like skin. When attached to the skin, it can measure human body movements and can be used to implement virtual reality. However, existing equipment is large in size, has limited flexibility, is structurally very complex to respond to the numerous joint tissues of the human body, and generates a large amount of information, which limits its practical use.
To overcome these limitations, the research team applied a new method that automatically prints a nanometer-scale conductive mesh on the hand by directly spraying a conductive liquid onto the skin.
We observed that the conductive mesh on the hand stretched according to the user's movements, generating electrical signals, and the information obtained at that time was transmitted wirelessly via a Bluetooth communication device.
▲Schematic diagram of intelligent electronic skin. After printing a conductive mesh directly on the user's skin, a Bluetooth module is attached to wirelessly read the signals of electrical conductivity changes according to hand movements. Through the meta-learning technique, it can be used for various real-life applications such as object recognition and keyboard typing with just a few repetitions of learning. After the artificial intelligence compares and learns various types of transmitted electrical signals on its own and distinguishes different hand movements, it was confirmed that the user can perform various tasks in virtual space by repeating a specific movement just a few times. (Image - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
In addition, the research team succeeded in implementing various virtual reality platform technologies, such as allowing text input using only hand gestures without a keyboard, and drawing the shape of an object on the screen simply by rubbing it.
▲ Object recognition and virtual keyboard typing using the developed system. (Left) After a user wears the conductive nano-mesh and Bluetooth module, the system shows real-time prediction of six types of objects through only five repetitions of learning. (Right) After a few repetitions of learning through the keyboard, the user can see the keyboard input even without the keyboard. (Image - Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology)
It is expected that the technology implemented by the research team for the first time in the world will be widely used in the fields of virtual reality and telemedicine in the future.
Professor Cho Seong-ho said, "This is the first paper to combine material innovation and the latest artificial intelligence, and its significance is very great as it not only simplifies wearable devices but also maximizes user convenience through data efficiency." He also predicted that, "This technology can bring about groundbreaking innovation in the fields of metaverse, AR/VR market, telemedicine, and robotics."