Touchlab Raises Investment To Give Robots A Human Touch
by Startacus Admin
Edinburgh-based startup Touchlab secures investment to support further development and commercialization of its innovative skin suits for robots.
UK startup Touchlab, a deep tech venture in EIT Digital's Innovation Factory roster, has raised £3.5m (€4.36m) in a funding round led by Octopus Ventures. Touchlab is successfully pursuing an ambitious goal to give robots a human touch. While robots excel against humans in many ways, some tasks are difficult for them to replicate - grasping objects, for instance. In areas of tactile sensing and dexterity, robots have been inferior because they cannot detect tactile information and sometimes use too much force to achieve delicate tasks.
As we've previously highlighted, Touchlab is solving this by developing a low-profile tactile sensing skin, which is wrapped around robots as "electronic-skin".
EIT Digital's UK and Ireland director, Morgan Gillis commented: "Touchlab has outstanding technology with potential for far reaching economic and societal impact. We are delighted to support them in this stage of intense commercialization alongside Octopus Ventures, a leading European VC firm, which shares our focus on deep tech".
Touchlab's e-skin is thinner than human skin, can be easily applied to existing robots and is able to withstand extreme environments such as acid, and high and low temperatures. When used in conjunction with tele-operated avatars, the technology also enables humans to operate remotely in hazardous settings such as nuclear plants or hospitals treating highly infectious diseases.
Zaki Hussein, CEO of Touchlab added: "I greatly look forward to working with EIT Digital to commercialize our tactile avatar telerobot in hospitals across Europe. We aim to break the chain of hospital acquired infections (HAIs) without hindering the human interaction between clinicians and patients - a problem to which there is no existing solution. This will significantly reduce complications due to deadly pathogens, from COVID to MRSA."
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Published on: 25th April 2022
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