Chinese scientists have developed a new type of electronic skin to enable robots to navigate between objects around them in the dark through a sense of touch when vision is limited.
The soft, gel-like e-skin has a ribbon-like appearance and mimics the properties of human skin, with features such as its stretch ability and self-healing ability. It can also detect changes in temperature and pressure, which enhances its usefulness for use in robotics.
A major difficulty in developing e-skin has long been the lack of suitable composites with physicochemical and sensory properties like human skin. A team of researchers from Southeast China University found the solution by developing this new electronic skin based on natural silk, a protein material.
To create this electronic skin, the scientists also added water-absorbing calcium ions, weak acid hydrogen ions, and two-dimensional nanomaterials sensitive to environmental stimuli.
Duan Shengxun, a member of the research team, said it has all the physical and chemical properties similar to desired skin, such as its stretchability, self-healing ability, weak acidity and antibacterial activities, and it senses the temperature, pressure and humidity of the surrounding conditions once it is turned on.
“The electronic skin is self-healing,” Duan added, noting that skin grafts can be easily performed by attaching a new piece to the scratched piece.
The findings were published in the journal ACS Nano.