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Scientists have created a latest kind of artificial skin that they claim has more sensing features than human skin.
A team from Nanyang Technological University in Singapore built the dual-responsive artificial skin to not only detect pressure applied by an object, but additionally the item’s approach.
The technology has quite a lot of potential applications referring to next-generation electronics, including human-machine interfaces and robots.
The unreal skin is also utilized in prostheses, offering amputees latest ways of feeling and sensing objects.
“We created artificial skin with sensing capabilities superior to human skin,” said Yifan Wang, an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.
“Unlike human skin that senses most information from touching actions, this artificial skin also obtains wealthy cognitive information encoded in touchless or approaching operations. The work could lead on to next-generation robotic perception technologies superior to existing tactile sensors.”
The researchers have already tested the skin in quite a lot of ways, including scrolling on an electronic screen, navigating with a map and manipulating virtual video game characters.
The unreal skin was in a position to detect different signals from approaching targets, meaning touchless object identification is also possible.
The research was published within the scientific journal Small.
It builds on previous work on artificial skin, which has seen several major advancements lately.
In 2022, scientists from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) developed a synthetic skin able to sensing temperature, pressure and even whether or not something is toxic.
The sensors utilized in the skin were embedded in hydrogel, making it possible to print them onto skin in a process much like that of an inkjet printer.
Industrial applications include detecting pollution sources in a river and ‘feeling’ for traces of explosives on suspicious pieces of baggage.
