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Scientists Develop Electronic Skin to Give Robots the Feeling of Human Touch
- A team from University College London and the University of Cambridge created an affordable, robust robotic skin in 2025 that can be worn over robot hands like a glove to enable tactile sensing.
- The team created this technology because existing sensor designs require complex, multiple materials, so they aimed to detect various touches with a single flexible material.
- They applied physical tests and machine learning to enable the skin to ‘learn’ important sensory pathways, capturing over 860,000 signals to recognize pressure, temperature, and multi-point contact.
- Dr. David Hardman noted that these materials can rapidly capture a vast array of data, while Dr. Thuruthel mentioned that although the robotic skin currently surpasses existing alternatives, it has not yet reached the sensitivity level of human skin.
- Published in Science Robotics, this skin promises improved robot interaction and could benefit prosthetics, automotive applications, and disaster relief, with future work planned to enhance durability and functionality.
34 Articles
34 Articles
A group of scientists developed a long-lasting and highly sensitive robotic "skin" that can be added to the hands of a robot like a glove, allowing them to detect information about their environment in a manner similar to how humans do it through touch. Researchers from the universities of Cambridge and the College of London (UCL) created this flexible and conductive skin, easy to manufacture and which can be melted and molded in a wide range of…
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New synthetic ‘skin’ gives robots human touch
Scientists say the low-cost, durable and highly-sensitive material can be added to robotic hands just like a glove.
British researchers have developed a flexible, sensitive and low-cost robotic skin, capable of perceiving the environment in a manner similar to human skin. This innovation, created by the universities of Cambridge and University College London, can adapt like a glove to the hands of robots and prosthetics. Made with a moulded conductive hydrogel, this skin detects multiple types of contact — pressure, temperature or damage — from a single mater…
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