E-skin Research
Northwestern University Research Project
Project Summary
Developed firmware for a robotic electronic skin sensor system using PIC32 microcontrollers and MPLAB Harmony framework for tactile sensing applications in robotics research.
Technical Overview
Electronic skin (e-skin) is a flexible, stretchable electronic system that mimics the properties of human skin, enabling robots to have precise touch and force sensing. This research project focuses on developing the embedded firmware that powers a acoustic tomagraphic eskin.
The system uses a PIC32 microcontroller running the MPLAB Harmony framework to:
- Sample a 12 bit ADC at 6.25 Msps
- Send data over USB to a PC
- Syncronize with another microcontroller using a trigger signal
Firmware Architecture
The firmware is built on Microchip's MPLAB Harmony framework, which provides a modular, driver-based architecture for embedded development. Key components include:
- ADC: Uses the high speed 12-bit Analog to Digital Converter peripheral of the PIC32 MZ EF to collect data at 6.25 Msps
- DMA: Direct Memory Access transfers ADC samples to RAM with minimal CPU overhead
- Communication Protocol: USB Vendor device for streaming data to PC
- State Machine: Manages system modes and error handling
Applications
E-skin technology has numerous applications in robotics and beyond:
- Robotic manipulation and grasping with tactile feedback
- Human-robot interaction and collaborative robotics
- Prosthetics with sensory feedback
- Soft robotics and wearable devices