Fiber Batteries Could Power Smart Clothes Zinc Ion Battery Fibers could be a boon for off-the rack wearables

Flexible supercapacitors have a High Power density but their low energy density and quick discharge times limit their usefulness. Although flexible lithium-ion battery have a higher energy density than conventional batteries, there are safety concerns that limit their widespread use in wearable technology. Enter zinc ion batteries. This promising energy-storage technology is low-cost and has high safety. The gel electrolytes used to help with electric charge flow in these batteries are difficult to make and have low mechanical properties and ion conductivity. 

Scientists have now developed rechargeable zinc-ion batteries that have a relatively high energy density of 91 W/L. This is comparable to lithium-ion batteries energy densities ranging from 250 to 670 W/L. The batteries could be made as fibers of one millimeter in size, which were nearly as elastic as human skin. They can stretch 230% without breaking and cost $0.64 per fifteen centimeters. They are also lightweight at 1.26g per 15 centimeters. 

* This sounds like social robots might be able to address some of these needs. Do you believe social robots should be used to provide elder care?

Things can get really difficult for people with advanced dementia. A variety of robot-like or doll-like items can be used to help people with dementia feel more at ease and improve their quality of life. Although they may seem a little creepy to those without the disability, I believe they are actually very capable and can fulfill that role well. If you think of it in business terms, there's another large market where many people's lives could be greatly improved, even if they are just retired. We want to create a social-assistive tech. This field is still in its infancy, so much of the improvements to people's lives could happen in the next five to ten years. Social robotics is a space where robots can be used to connect lonely people with their grandchildren, grandkids, or friends. This is an area with huge potential.

* Where do you draw a line about the connection you want to make between a person and a machine?

We don't wish to fool anyone. To not fool anyone, we should be extremely ethical. People are capable of fooling themselves a lot. We don't have the responsibility to do it for them. To the extent we can say "This is your personal mechanized assistant," that's fine. It is a machine and can help you in a personal way. It will learn what interests you. It will also learn about what you don’t like. It will remind you to exercise, call your children, call your friends, and get in touch with your doctor. These are all things that people often forget to do on their own. This is how you should think about socially-assistive technologies. It is not meant to replace other people. It helps you be closer to others and live a more fulfilling life.

* What do you think the role of humans in the interaction with robotic consumer products? It could be very useful in the following places:

We should be reluctant to do person-behind-the-curtain stuff, although from a business point of view, we absolutely are going to need that. Imagine that an automated vehicle is able to see a human driver in a double-parked vehicle and refuses to cross the double yellow line. The vehicle should call home to say that it needs an exception to cross the double-yellow line. However, having the human driver actually drive the car at a distance implies that communication between them is so strong it is as if they are sitting in the driver's chair. It assumes that the car's ability to avoid a collision is so great that even if the communications link was lost, the car wouldn't crash. Both of these are very difficult tasks. It's okay for remote human beings to perform a supervisory role. However, we must be careful not fool the public into believing that no one is in the front seat.

* Could you please give us an example of a technology that TRI has been working on that would benefit the elderly?

Robots must be as safe as possible, but also be gentle and able to react to unexpected and expected situations and disturbances in the same way that a person would. Robots must be affordable if they are to improve the quality of life of many people. Compliant actuation is where the robot detects physical contact and responds with flexibility. This can help us get to a certain extent. We have created instrumented, functional and low-cost compliant surfaces which are soft to touch. To replace metal and plastic, we started with bubble grippers. We hope to make robot hardware as strong, gentle, and aware as a human assistant and affordable for many elderly and disabled people.

* What do you think should be the next DARPA robotics challenge?

Wow. I'm not sure! But, I can tell what ours [at TRI] is. The grocery store is our challenge. We don't want to create a grocery-shopping machine, but this challenge will help us develop the skills we need to do other tasks in our home. We wanted to find a task that did not require us to ask 1,000 people for their permission to enter their homes. It turned out that the grocery shop is quite a good choice. It's difficult for us to explain to people that it's not all about the store. Instead, it's about your abilities that allow you to work in the store. This will, we believe, translate into a lot of other things. This is the kind of thing we are working on.

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