This paper presents Skye, a novel blimp design. Skye is a helium-filled sphere of diameter 2.7m with a strong inelastic outer hull and an impermeable elastic inner hull. Four tetrahedrally-arranged actuation units (AU) are mounted on the hull for locomotion, with each AU having a thruster which can be rotated around a radial axis through the sphere center. This design provides redundant control in the six degrees of freedom of motion, and Skye is able to move omnidirectionally and to rotate around any axis. A multi-camera module is also mounted on the hull for capture of aerial imagery or live video stream according to an 'eyeball' concept -the camera module is not itself actuated, but the whole blimp is rotated in order to obtain a desired camera view.Skye is safe for use near people -the double hull minimizes the likelihood of rupture on an unwanted collision; the propellers are covered by grills to prevent accidental contact; and the blimp is near neutral buoyancy so that it makes only a light impact on contact and can be readily nudged away.The system is portable and deployable by a single operator -the electronics, AUs, and camera unit are mounted externally and are detachable from the hull during transport; operator control is via an intuitive touchpad interface.The motivating application is in entertainment robotics. Skye has a varied motion vocabulary such as swooping and bobbing, plus internal LEDs for visual effect. Computer vision enables interaction with an audience. Experimental results show dexterous maneuvers in indoor and outdoor environments, and non-dangerous impacts between the blimp and humans.

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The development of advanced, human like tactile sensing capabilities is one of the key challenges for next generation robots or prosthetics. Tactile sensors arrays will need to exhibit the desired sensing capabilities, show robustness to external influences as well as good approaches for the integration of large amounts of sensors. We present a tactile sensor array technology, based on the fabrication of a flexible interconnection substrate containing directly integrated tactile sensors. This approach has several advantages: interconnection substrate technology is widely available making upscaling of sensor arrays easy to a large amount of sensors and/or large sensing areas, the direct integration of sensors allows for a simple and very compact approach to densely packed sensor arrays and the structured flexible substrate enables integration into complex, three-dimensional bodies. We present sensors with a size of 600 µm and arrays of up to 12 × 12 individually addressable sensors. The sensors have a wide measurement range; free membrane deformation results in a high sensitivity of 2.6 kPa −1 respectively 2600 N −1 for small applied pressures (0-0.6 kPa) whereas deforming polymer studs extend the measurement range for larger applied pressures (5-25 kPa) with a sensitivity of 0.022 kPa −1 respectively 22 N −1 . A statistical study of six sensor arrays from three wafers showed repeatable performance of the fabricated structures and robustness tests proved the stable sensing conditions over 10'000 cycles.