The technology is still in the experimental stage, but there had been “enormous interest”
Singapore:
Researchers in Singapore have developed an “electronic skin” capable of recreating a sense of touch, an innovation that they hope will allow people with prostheses to detect objects, as well as to feel texture, or even feel. temperature and pain.
The device, dubbed ACES, or Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, is made up of 100 small sensors and measures approximately 1 cm2 (0.16 square inches).
Researchers at the National University of Singapore say it can process information faster than the human nervous system, is able to recognize 20 to 30 different textures, and can read braille letters with over 90% accuracy.
“So humans need to slide to feel the texture, but in this case the skin, with just one touch, is able to detect textures of different roughness,” said research team leader Benjamin Tee, adding that AI algorithms allow the device to learn quickly.
A demonstration showed that the device could detect that a spongy stress ball was soft and determine that a solid plastic ball was hard.
“When you lose your sense of touch, you basically become numb … and prosthetic users face this problem,” Tee said.
“So by recreating an artificial version of the skin, for their prostheses, they can hold a hand and feel the heat and feel how soft it is, how good they are holding the hand,” Tee said.
Tee said the concept was inspired by a scene from the “Star Wars” movie trilogy in which the character Luke Skywalker loses his right hand and is replaced by a robot, apparently able to feel tactile sensations again.
The technology is still in the experimental stage, but there had been “enormous interest”, especially from the medical community, Tee added.
Similar patents developed by his team include a transparent skin that can repair itself when torn and a light-emitting material for portable electronic devices, Tee said.
(This story was not edited by GalacticGaming staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
