Scientists create artificial skin that can mimic the sensation of touch

Scientists at the robotics lab at the Swiss EPFL have developed an artificial skin that can simulate the sensation of touch. The skin can be used, among other things, for help with medical rehabilitation and for improving VR experiences.

The artificial skin can mimic the feeling of touch with haptic feedback. This is possible through the use of vibrations and the application of pressure. The skin contains pneumatic actuators that form a membrane layer. The artificial skin vibrates when it is blown full of air. In this way the sense of touch is stimulated. These drives can be adjusted to different pressure sensitivities with frequencies of up to 100Hz, which equals 100 pulses per second.

The skin is made of silicone and flexible electrodes made of a mixture of liquid and solid gallium. The electrodes measure the movements of the skin. This information is sent to a microcontroller, which uses this data to adjust the haptic feedback in response to, among other things, the movements of users. The artificial skin can be stretched to four times its original size and can withstand a million cycles of stretching and slackening.

According to EPFL, this skin can be used in medical rehabilitation and to improve VR and AR applications, among other things. In the medical world, the technology could be used, among other things, to test position sense. This is a patient’s ability to sense the position of their own body. In VR, for example, users could feel digital objects in real life through the skin.

Currently, EPFL has only tested the skin on human fingers. The next step is to develop a fully portable prototype. This prototype is to be used, among other things, to stimulate a human body during a study of brain activity during magnetic resonance experiments, which is used, among other things, for making MRI scans.