Big White's skin is expected to come true.
Researchers in the United States have developed an artificial skin that stretches well, senses pressure and glows, which could be used in the future in areas such as robotics and wearable devices.
Researchers at Cornell University and other institutions in the United States report in a new issue of the journal Science that they have developed the artificial skin by mimicking the skin of an octopus, which can stretch and change color. It has a three-layer structure, the upper and lower layers are wrapped in rubber-like soft material in the transparent hydrogel electrodes, the middle layer is wrapped in zinc sulfide fluorescent powder of the same rubber-like soft material. The overall device is made using technologies such as 3D printing, which requires a low cost. Thanks to the use of high-strength, easy-to-stretch materials, the device can be unidirectionally stretched to nearly six times its original length, and the stretching does not affect its luminescent properties.
Li Shuo, who is studying in Cornell University's materials engineering department, is mainly responsible for the manufacturing and testing of this artificial skin-emitting device. He told Xinhua, "This kind of skin provides a brand-new idea for manufacturing stretchable light-emitting devices. Conventional stretchable light-emitting devices based on organic light-emitting diodes and polymer light-emitting diodes can realize good light-emitting performance, but limited by their materials, the maximum stretchability is only 120 percent."
One important characteristic of this skin is that it can sense and measure deformation and pressure like real skin, which can be applied to robots. Li Shuo said that when the medical robot "Big White" in the Hollywood blockbuster "The Incredibles" inflates and hugs the hero, it needs an accurate signal feedback to make sure that it doesn't over-inflate or over-pressurize and hurt the human being, and this feedback can be provided by the skin they invented.
The skin's luminescent properties can also be used for simple signaling. Again, the inspiration comes from octopuses, which can communicate with each other by controlling changes in skin color and spot patterns. The researchers have created a crawling soft robot with skin that uses three color luminaries, blue, orange and green, that can be actively turned on and off while crawling in a dark environment, enabling simple communication with eight signal combinations in one ****.
Li Shuo said that their main goal at the moment is that they want to use this technology in the current popular wearable devices to create stretchable electronics, rather than just regular electronics with reduced dimensions mounted on a rubber bracelet, as is the case with the now-popular smartwatches.
As for the next step in their research, they hope to improve the resolution and enrich the color of the stretchable emitter by introducing other microelectronic manufacturing techniques and electronic control technology, aiming to be able to be used as a display. Another direction is to utilize its pressure-sensing and light-emitting properties to further enhance the interaction between humans and machines. Other applications include the creation of octopus-shaped robots for undersea bionic experiments. We are also looking forward to the birth of the Great White.