Electromechanical sensors give wearers ‘Spidey Sense’

In a stunning example of biomimicry –applying time-tested patterns and applications in nature as a model for solving human problems – researchers in Korea have discovered that the use of “crack sensors” will give wearers the ability to experience extreme sensitivity to sound and vibration.

The recent discovery uses nanoscale crack junction-based sensory systems to operate exactly as spider legs do in the real world. Spiders have crack-shaped slit organs that are extremely sensitive to vibration and sound, which explains why the insects often seem to have an innate ability to sense when a person is about to swat at it before the swatting actually occurs.

Located on their legs, spiders’ slit organs are comprised of the stiff exoskeleton on the surface and a more flexible pad within the gaps. This pad is connected directly to the nervous system of the spider.

Relating the new electromechanical sensor technology to that which is naturally occurring in arachnids, Prof. Dr. Peter Fratzl of the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Germany, explained it in terms that are easier to understand. “Think of the crack sensor as stiff metal tiles glued on top of rubber. If you stretch the length of rubber by 1%, the metal tiles – like the spider’s exoskeleton – do not stretch at all, but the rubber in between each tile, representative of the spider’s sensing pad below, stretches by a far greater percentage.”

In the laboratory environment, the Korean scientists have recently built a mechanical version of these “crack sensors” using a 20-nanometer layer of platinum on top of a viscoelastic polymer. The researchers purposely warped the platinum layer to produce cracks open to the soft polymer below. In doing so, they could measure the conductance across the surface of this new sensor system. As with spiders, this stretch distortion generates an amplification system.

According to experts, the applications for this technology are almost limitless. This new “crack sensor” technology could be used for speech recognition and sound recording, as well as providing the earliest indication of tremors before an earthquake. In the ever-growing healthcare arena, this technology could be implemented on wearable devices to monitor heartbeats, blood pressure or other health conditions.

Professor Mansoo Choi at Seoul National University worked on the study, and says we are probably still three to five years out from commercial applications.

“Hopefully not too long from now, 'spidey-sense' technologies will be a part of our lives,” he said.

Via Mashable