ROBOTS of the future could be coated in ‘living skin’ that makes them look and feel human.
That’s according to scientists at the University of Tokyo who have made a “sweaty” robotic finger to demonstrate how human-like skin can cover machines.
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The scientists explain their “self-healing” robot skin in a new paper.
They wrote: “The covering materials of humanoid robots have gone through transformations from stiff and heavy materials to soft and compliant materials to better mimic the appearance and function of human beings.
“Here, we report a biohybrid approach to generate robots covered with tissue-engineered skin.
” The skin coverage not only results in a human-like appearance but also enables self-healing functions.”
The skin is largely made up of collagen, which is a protein that we also have in our skin.
It could become an alternative to silicone.
That’s what most humanoid robots are coated in at the moment.
Scientists coated a robot finger in the ‘skin’ by placing the finger in a special collagen solution.
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Shoji Takeuchi, a mechanical engineer at the University of Tokyo, said: “The finger looks slightly ‘sweaty’ straight out of the culture medium.”
And, added: “To efficiently cover surfaces with skin cells, we established a tissue molding method to directly mold skin tissue around the robot, which resulted in a seamless skin coverage on a robotic finger.”
Takeuchi emphasized that this is just the first step in the process of making robots have human-like skin.
Making machines more human-like could eventually aid in robot and human relationships.
Right now humanoid robots can stir up a feeling referred to as “uncanny valley syndrome”.
That’s when an object that heavily resembles a human but isn’t human stirs up feelings of unease and disgust in the person looking at it.
Takeuchi said: “I think living skin is the ultimate solution to give robots the look and touch of living creatures since it is exactly the same material that covers animal bodies.”
He hopes his team can add things like sweat glands, hairs, nails, and even sensory neurons to the robot skin to make it even more realistic.
