New Artificial Skin and Its Possibilities

The article titled “New artificial skin could make prosthetic limbs and robots more sensitive” dealt with recent discoveries on artificial skin sensitivity and how it could relate to future developments in various fields. Previously, experiments involved very thin continuous film which was unable to return to its equilibrium state once the particular force had been applied. The rubber currently being used behaves “More like an ideal spring,” which has a thickness of less than one millimeter. At first, I didn’t understand why this would have immense importance to prosthetic research because the article showed no emphasis on attempts or thoughts on linking this new found feeling of touch to the user of the prosthetic limb. It’s great that a robotic limb is able to detect subtle pressure/movement but what would that mean to a user of a prosthetic limb? Could this new development be somehow incorporated into the linkage through appropriate nerves allowing users to regain this precise sensation? Or would the necessary nerves be too far damaged or sealed off to use for such an idea? Furthermore, what cases would make applicants ineligible for such a procedure? However, I found the adaption of this new development to vehicular safety very interesting. The thought was that pressure sensors could possibly be designed to sense when no hands were holding the steering wheel; (as in when a drier tired/drunk/falls asleep at the wheel and their hands either loosen of fall completely away from the wheel) thus an automatic safety mechanism would be activated. This new extreme sensitivity surface opens up hundreds of possibilities. I will be interested in seeing how prosthetic limb research incorporated this discovery into their work.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-09/su-nas091310.php