Stretchable Electronics Allow Robots to "Feel" Hot and Cold

Artificial skin, sounds closer and closer to a useful product for artificial body parts or a horribly scary robot that will hunt and kill and terrorize....
But I digress, this is a step in the direction of helping those with missing/damaged limbs "feel" things again.

A team of researchers from the University of Houston has reported a breakthrough in stretchable electronics that can serve as an artificial skin, allowing a robotic hand to sense the difference between hot and cold, while also offering advantages for a wide range of biomedical devices.

www.sciencedaily.com...

This material can stretch 50% and still work. Very impressive. And it also is a cheaper way to have sensors in fake skin, seems the old semi conductors were too fragile. This is much more resilient.

Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Assistant Professor of mechanical engineering and lead author for the paper, said the work is the first to create a semiconductor in a rubber composite format, designed to allow the electronic components to retain functionality even after the material is stretched by 50 percent.

The work is the first semiconductor in rubber composite format that enables stretchability without any special mechanical structure, Yu said.

Artificial skin is just one application, wearable health monitors, medical implants and human machine interfaces. New opportunities and help for people who may need a new hand or a monitor for a medical condition.

"The robotic skin can translate the gesture to readable letters that a person like me can understand and read," Yu said.

The artificial skin is just one application. Researchers said the discovery of a material that is soft, bendable, stretchable and twistable will impact future development in soft wearable electronics, including health monitors, medical implants and human-machine interfaces.

But the whole story this guy was in the back of my mind.


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a reply to: seasonal

Neither of your linked images have displayed.

None the less, this does seem a fantastic advancement, and one which is jolly timely. Those who are using bionics at present, will no doubt be champing at the bit to get involved with this early!

Be sure to give the robits guns.