The skin, the largest organ of the human body, plays an important role in the perception of the world around us. However, the task of creating an artificial skin, an electronic skin analogue of robots, automatic prosthetics, implants and other devices that can provide the fullness of human emotions, is very trivial and very complex. As a result, thin films with different electronic properties used today only contain one or at most two kinds of senses, pressure, touch, temperature, etc. can detect.

Researchers at the Chemnitz University of Technology have recently developed a new type of electronic skin that uses a new type of sensor that makes the entire device particularly sensitive to touch. This was achieved by mimicking another important but almost invisible factor, the tiny hairs that cover human skin.

The basis of the new electronic skin is a rubber material containing tiny hairs made of magnetic material. Like natural hair, magnetic hair has a thickening of the hair follicle at the end. The top of the hair moves when it comes into contact with something, and a sensitive three-dimensional magnetic sensor detects this movement in real time. And the entire sensor matrix transmits the data stream to the control system, whose analysis allows to determine the area, strength and contact direction.

Scientists say that modern technology allows you to easily establish the industrial production of new types of electronic leather. And technologies such as micro-origami will give the skin any shape and cover it with objects of any complexity. Source