• Project on creating a robotic hand covered in so-called “brainy skin” that mimics the human sense of touch.
• Brainy Skin reacts like human skin, which has its own neurons that respond immediately to touch rather than having to relay the whole message to the brain.
• This electronic “thinking skin” is made from silicon-based printed neural transistors and graphene – an ultra-thin form of carbon that is only an atom thick, but stronger than steel. The new version in the making is said to be more powerful, less cumbersome and would work better than earlier prototypes.
• Inspired by real skin, this project will harness the technological advances in electronic engineering to mimic some features of human skin, such as softness, bendability and now, also sense of touch.
• Brainy Skin is critical for the autonomy of robots and for a safe human-robot interaction to meet emerging societal needs such as helping the elderly.