Electronic skin is more sensitive than you think, even the scorpion can distinguish

Release date: 2015-11-10

Skin is the interface between your brain and the world. Well, this sentence sounds like the opening remarks of a material scientist... But to be honest, human skin is really amazing. It is smart, easy to perceive, and continues to provide you with useful information about your surroundings. At a deeper level, the skin can actually touch the feelings and let us better understand the real world.

But electronic devices can't do this... at least not yet. Scientists have been trying for the past decade to make technology products feel as humans as they are. In the initial experiment, they could only feel one thing at a time, such as temperature, pressure and the like. The researchers tried to integrate different sensory systems, but the results were not satisfactory. Now some Korean researchers have developed a compact electronic skin that uses a “multi-tasking processor system” like human skin, which can feel pressure, temperature and sound at the same time. The pressure is all right.)

In a study published in the journal Science Progress, scientists found design inspiration from fingerprints. The skin at the fingerprint can be said to be the most sensitive on the body. The ridge above it can amplify the vibration and enlarge the touch to be extremely detailed. In this way, you can tell what is crumpled, what is grainy, and what is velvety. In addition, the dermis layer and the epidermis layer are tied together, resulting in more contact points. The artificial skin studied in Korea also has raised lines and is sandwiched between two layers of rugged film (like the dermis and epidermis). So, it's sensitive enough to detect the presence of a strand of hair, and to distinguish the difference between a tied beard and a slight stubble. (Yes, they even tried this...)

The key to enabling electronic skin to handle multitasking is a combination of high polymer and graphene oxide. When the temperature changes, the material generates electricity; when an object stays on the skin, the resistivity changes with the degree of swell of the skin. So, if a drop of water falls on the electronic skin, scientists can guess the temperature of the water and the height of its fall~

This is still only a proof of concept, but its derivative application has been conceived - for example, the bionic person or Skywalker Luke's prosthetic palm is simply cool. However, the technology of micro-manufacturing technology has caught up with the illusion of human semi-mechanics, and it is only the latest thing. Now, every few months, there will be a new design in the lab: gloves with sensors! Sticky paper with printed circuit! (sounds weird...)

“We are in a very early stage,” Benjamin Ti is a skin researcher at the Institute of Materials and Engineering in Singapore. "The current state of electronic skin is like the Great Northern Wilderness." Scientists are constantly coming up with new ideas to see which ones can stand. In other words, see which technology products have decent specifications that can be produced at low cost and in large quantities.

At present, electronic skin may not be put into use. However, this kind of skin has a good prospect in the medical field. Li Shanghong is a chemical engineer at the East Asian University in Korea. This skin is sensitive enough to detect sound waves, so it is good to use it as a hearing aid. His team also attached this flexible, tape-like skin to the wrist to measure the pulse.

"The signal measured with a material similar to the skin is much better than that measured with a square-shaped test strip." John Rogers is a materials scientist at Illinois State University. Rogers' lab is working on an electronic device like a temporary tattoo to collect human health data. In the future, electronic skin can make surgical robots more sensitive, and may also be used to wrap outside the prosthesis to help the elderly better cope with life.

If you jump out of the medical field, electronic skin is essentially a smart surface. So in theory, where someone interacts with technology, the designer can apply it to where. Benjamin pointed out that Apple's recent investment in Force Touch (a new touch sensing technology) and 3D Touch (a new generation of multi-touch technology) is a good example. “Of course we are working hard to integrate seamlessly with the digital world,” he said. “But the question is, how can we integrate the cold 1 and 0 of the digital world with what we can actually touch?”

Everyone is a sensitive person - maybe our technology should be sensitive too.

Source: Bio Valley

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