Hollywood has a way of creating unrealistic expectations for technological breakthroughs. When we see some cool science on the big screen, some incredible device in glowing CGI, it glosses over all the small steps, all the incremental progress it would take to make it reality. Look at prosthetic limbs, for example. The robot hands we're used to seeing in science-fiction have been in development for a long, long time, and they're likely going to be in development for a long time yet. However, this latest small step might just be a tipping point.
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have developed an experimental synthetic skin for prosthetic limbs that has a sense of touch.
In fact, research teams around the globe have been working on touch-sensitive synthetic skin for years, but the Scottish team has made a breakthrough that could make it a reality by adding solar cells.
The holdup in the past has been finding an efficient way to power the tiny sensors that mimic the sense of touch in human skin.
Previously, the synthetic skin relied on batteries. The Scottish team found a way to use ultra-thin graphene so that solar cells could power the skin's sensors.
At just one atom in thickness, graphene allows 98% of the light that hits it to pass through.
At the same time, it's strong, flexible, durable, and electrically conductive – it's the ideal material to make a skin covering the photovoltaic cells.
Touch-sensitive skin would be useful for robots as well as for prosthetic limbs. Robots with touch-sensitive skin would be better at detecting and avoiding dangerous actions when interacting with humans.
The next step for the researchers, however, will be to use the solar-powered skin to also power the motors in an artificial hand. "This could allow the creation of an entirely energy-autonomous prosthetic limb," said team lead Ravinder Dahiya.
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