Smart Artificial Skin Could Give Prosthetic Limbs Feeling
- stretchy and warm like real skin
- jammed w/ tiny sensors that can sense a multitude of environment cues: heat, pressure, and moisture
- self-healing
- 1,000x more sensitive than human skin
- smart prosthetics are often very rigid and easy to fracture
- the smart skin is composed of an elastic, transparent silicone material called polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)
- packed w/ 400 sensors per square millimeter
- made of silicone nano ribbons in a snake-like shape that allows the delicate sensors to withstand more strain
- sensors generate an electrical feedback signal when stretched or squashed, and can also detect levels of temperature (hot/cold)
- the smart skin also has capacitors that can detect humidity
- with further development, it could transmit sensory info to the brains of amputees to give prosthetic limbs feeling
- don't enable the user to feel if something is dangerously hot, or whether the user is about to drop something b/c the grip is too soft
- currently unsuitable for humans
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