Health
A Robotic finger covered in human skin
The skin can bend and stretch just like a normal human finger.
By Staff Correspondent Last Updated Jun 9, 2022
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Robotic’ experts from the University of Tokyo have taken the pinkie step toward creating a humanoid. They’ve built a robot finger that is covered in human skin.
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Inert hard and soft materials like cloth, rubber, and silicone don’t move or bend, or even interact to stimulate the way human skin does, so what better than to use our skin to cover it.
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A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo has detailed in a paper published in the journal ‘Matter’, a new approach for seamlessly wrapping a robotic finger in living skin tissue.
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A robotic finger covered with human skin developed by researchers at the University of Tokyo. Image: Shoji Takeuchi
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The researchers created a robotic finger with three moving joints which were first submerged in a collagen solution, a structural protein, and dermal fibroblasts, the primary type of human cells found in the skin’s connective tissue and its sub-surface dermis layer. This solution shrank and tightly held itself to the robotic finger, creating a flexible base on which to apply multiple layers of epidermal keratinocytes, the primary type of human cells found in the skin’s outer epidermis layer.
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The outer layer of epidermal keratinocytes gave the robotic finger a skin-like texture and had enough strength and elasticity to not tear. As it is seamless it is waterproof. It is self-healing too.
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To test healing properties the researchers deliberately cut the skin with a scalpel, then an acellular collagen hydrogel sheet was dipped in collagen solution and grafted onto the tissue to cover the wounded area and heal it.
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These are the first steps toward creating humanoids. The skins are much less durable than our natural skin and cannot continuously regenerate. More research and improvements are needed if we are to use them on a continual basis.
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