Three-Dimensional Self-Healable Touch Sensing Artificial Skin Device

Abstract

Human skin is a unique functional material that perfectly covers body parts having various complicated shapes, spontaneously heals mechanical damage, and senses a touch. E-skin devices have been actively researched, focusing on the sensing functionality of skin. However, most e-skin devices still have limitations in their shapes, and it is a challenging issue of interest to realize multiple functionalities in one device as human skin does. Here, new artificial skin devices are demonstrated in application-oriented three-dimensional (3D) shapes, which can sense exact touch location and heal mechanical damage spontaneously. Beyond the conventional film-type e-skin devices, the artificial skin devices are fabricated in optimal three-dimensional structures, via systematic material design and characterization of ion-conductive self-healing hydrogel system and its extrusion-based 3D printing. The ring-shaped and fingertip-shaped artificial skin devices are successfully fabricated to fit perfectly on finger models, and shows large electronic signal contrast, ∼5.4 times increase in current, upon a human finger contact. Furthermore, like human skin, the device provides the exact positional information of an arbitrary touch location on a three-dimensional artificial skin device without complicated device fabrication or data processing.

The influence of fibre alignment on the fracture toughness of anisotropic soft tissue

“…Moreover, designing artificial skin with sensing capabilities is one of the critical requirements to fabricate soft grippers and muscles used in medical robots. Use of hyperelastic materials like polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) as artificial muscles and skin is widely reported in literature [1][2][3]. Human as well as artificial skin are often subjected to lacerations and wounds by the blunt objects such as paper, corner of sheet metal component, nails and fasteners, blade cuts etc.…”

Self‐Healing Soft Sensors: From Material Design to Implementation

“…Two main directions have been shown: 1) using pixelated arrays of pressure sensors that are often employed for electronic devices or smart phones (e.g., projected capacitive touch technology); [ 33,76 ] and 2) using surface capacitive touch panels. [ 56,77,78 ] Each method provides unique sensing abilities and advantages. For pixelated sensing arrays, the fabrication process is more complicated due to the need for very high‐resolution small features and a large number of interconnections, since each pixel requires wiring.…”

Blood Pressure Sensors: Materials, Fabrication Methods, Performance Evaluations and Future Perspectives

“…Chemical-based self-healing is a strategy, which utilizes the built-in capabilities in the targeted material to initiate a chemical reaction whenever physical damage occurs. This strategy takes place at the smallest scale of the targeted material, where autonomous self-healing mechanisms based on chemical reactions are triggered through several classes, including a covalent bond [467], supramolecular interaction [468], hydrogen-bonding [469], ionic-interactions [470] and π-π stacking [471]. Chemo-mechanical based self-healing is another strategy, which utilizes a rehealing agent within the host matrix (i.e., targeted material) to initiate a chemical reaction in response to mechanical damage [472].…”