New Artificial Skin Could Make Prosthetic Limbs and Robots More Sensitive

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Stanford scientists were able to successfully create a 'skin' by placing a rubber material between two parallel electrodes. This skin is very sensitive, capable of detecting the slightest touch. How this material differs from previous attempts is that it uses a molded grid of pyramids instead of smooth rubber. This allows the material to deform when placed under pressure and then return to its original shape. When the smooth rubber was put under pressure it was merely compressed deforming the internal structures and hindering it useless.

The skin is able to sense touch because the rubber material between the electrodes stores charge and when it is placed under pressure the charge changes, the change is then detected and constitutes the sensation of feeling. The molding of the skin into different shapes allows it to sense different magnitudes of pressure much like actual skin.

There are many different potential application of this skin ranging from integrating into a device to detect whether or not a driver is awake at the wheel, to applying it to bandages so doctors could tell if they are tight enough.

I found this article really interesting because I was unaware of the advancements that had been made in this field of biomedical engineering. I've always been interested in the improvements made in developing the mechanical prosthetic arm, but I never considered the possibility that the eventual final product would be able to sense touch. The potential applications of this 'skin' are limitless, I for one think it would be epic if this technology were integrated into the machine surgeons can use to operate on a patient from a different location.They would literally be able to 'feel' what they were doing while being halfway across the world. I am definitely going to continue following the advancements in this technology.

Source: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100913141537.htm

The above story is reprinted (with editorial adaptations by ScienceDaily staff) from materials provided by Stanford University. The original article was written by Louis Bergeron.