Achievement

Heather Markham developed a prototype "skin" to make human-robot interaction for people with disabilities safer. Heather is investigating how individuals with disabilities can interact with a robot in a safe and intuitive manner. Heather is investigating a novel method of human-robot interaction which relies on the presence of a skin that covers the robot and senses contact with it. Heather’s design goal is to develop the skin with the need to provide a continuous activation surface, while finding the optimal combination of conductive and insulator materials which require the least amount of force per activation and with the most consistent voltage change between conductive surfaces measured during activation.