Filipino scientist to make robots ‘feel’

By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

MOST people would still think that making robots feel is within the realm of science fiction, but few know that science is better than fiction. A young and upbeat Filipino scientist, John John Cabibihan, is paving the way to making robots “feel.”

In scientific terms, it is called “tactile sensing,” the detection and measurement of physical objects through contact. It is a subset of the general research on robotics, particularly with artificial limbs. Tactile sensing gives these machines the ability to feel objects in the real world.

Tactile sensing is also subset field of bionics (or biomimetics), which is generally a study to imitate natural systems and their subsequent artificial application.

Cabibihin, who holds a degree in biomedical robotics, is one of the few researchers worldwide to focus on tactile sensing. He was also involved, albeit on a smaller scale, in the development of the famed Cyberhand Project, a collaboration by several European institutions to create a prosthetic hand that not only is able to imitate human movements, but also has an extra feature which is sensory feedback.

The young scientist became more interested in the latter feature, while also discovering that little research has been made on tactile sensing in the last three decades, compared to robotics. There are design gaps in tactile sensing citing earlier researches that identify these concerns.

Cabibihan took his undergraduate and graduate degrees in manufacturing engineering and management at the De La Salle University in the Philippines, subsequently becoming a faculty member, then pursuing a post-graduate grant at the Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna in Italy. He then became a visiting researcher at France’s ENS de Cachan.

All throughout his studies Cabibihan’s focus was on the application of artificial skin and tactile sensing for robots. His Ph.D work in Italy is “to establish the design rules and guidelines in selecting a tactile sensory system and its embedding material that would be comparable in their basic functionality to the human fingertip.”

Cabibihan also identified the type of material that can imitate human skin and be the primary contact point for sensing objects. It was also the skin-like material that he followed up in his post-graduate work. He hopes that eventually, a new type of material fully imitating the sensory aspects of human skin will be eventually made and used.

Cabibihan is delving into bio-robotics. The scientist even believes that the future could be similar to the idea of humanoid robots as depicted in the “I, Robot” short stories of Isaac Asimov. In it, robots have the ability to fully interact with humans and even protect humans when their lives are in danger.

Cabibihan said his field requires a multidisciplinary approach where scientists with knowledge on different areas of expertise would work together to contribute to a single program, just as in the European Cyberhand Project. As such, he encourages Filipino students to focus on a particular field of study and make contributions to similar research.

He believes that Filipinos can excel in this field due to the great interest in robotics. However, academic institutions should also initiate research activities.

“We should align our directions on research,” he said.

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