Tiny Sensors Can Improve Surgical Gloves
The intricate properties of the fingertips have been mimicked and recreated using semiconductor devices in what researchers hope will lead to the development of advanced surgical gloves. The devices, shown to be capable of responding with high precision to the stresses and strains associated with touch and finger movement, are a step towards the creation of surgical gloves for use in medical procedures such as local ablations and ultrasound scans.
Offering guidelines to the creation of these electrotactile stimulation devices for use on surgeons’ fingertips, their paper describes the materials, fabrication strategies and device designs, using ultrathin, stretchable, silicon-based electronics and soft sensors that can be mounted onto an artificial “skin” and fitted to fingertips.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2012/08/tiny-sensors-can-improve-surgical-gloves
