Jellyfish-inspired artificial skin glows when it’s in pain

Researchers have created an artificial e-skin inspired from jellyfish that can glow when it is in pain.

Artificial skin is gaining a lot of popularity now with many uses like in robots, prosthetics or implanting sensory perceptions like touch and pressure. Taking the advantage, researchers from China drew their inspiration from a jellyfish in order to create the artificial skin.

The Atolla jellyfish contains the ability to sense pressure around its surrounding and when attacked, it gives out bright light flashes. Researchers mimicked the process by combining visual signals with pressure sensing by placing tiny silver wires in a stretchy material. The material was capable to generate electric signals when light pressure was applied to it. Researchers next added an extra layer of phosphors between the two layers of the material. The additional layer contained particles that luminate and were lit up when string pressure was applied to it.

Researchers invent artificial skin that 'feels'

As the pressure increased, the layered electronic skin made the phosphors particles lit up more and more and eventually the skin was able to register to a wider range of pressure, reported Engadget.

The study published in ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces showed that the high pressure levels are equal to the levels that become painful for humans. This proves that the luminous substance can be pain sensors present in human skin and will in turn generate a visual representation of human pain.

Apart from that, the complete pressure range the e-skin can sense resembles what human skin can feel. This ability makes the electronic skin a potential component to human-machine interfaces and intelligent robots.