Edinburgh-based start-up Touchlab, which is creating low-profile tactile sensing skin which can be applied to robotics, has raised over US$4.5m (£3.4m) in funding.
The latest round was led by Octopus Ventures, with Techstart Ventures also participating. Touchlab had also previously been supported through the first round of Creator Fund, which was introduced to PhD, academic and student talent building frontier technology start-ups.
Akriti Dokania, investor at Octopus Ventures, said: “Touchlab has made truly pioneering advances with its technology in tactile sensing. Electronic skin opens a world of new opportunities and applications in robotics, making it an extremely exciting time for the industry.
“Touchlab has a huge vision for the business, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to be supporting them on this journey.”
The robotic skin is designed to be thinner than human skin, it uses quantum tunnelling to make it biomimetic – sensing pressure and its location instead of force alone. This technology could enable robots to roll pens, feel texture, and sense pain like a human would.
Furthermore, the start-up is currently trialling its triaxial technology. This e-skin would be capable of detecting forces and their directions in 3D like no other sensor. Using this, it is possible to identify objects through touch alone, detect and compensate for slip before it occurs, and measure ground reaction forces.
While, still in development its shear e-skin is able to sense forces and directions in X and Y planar axes for an unparalleled dynamic range. This enables detection of slippage and its direction enabling real-time closed-loop operation of robotic grippers in various settings.
