Recent Progress in Electronic Skin

TLDR

Electronic skin research seeks to replicate the human skin’s ability to sense pressure, temperature, and other stimuli, with recent advances integrating high‑density flexible circuits, wireless technology, and self‑powered designs for broad applications in robotics, AI, and human‑machine interfaces. The study aims to create flexible, stretchable pressure sensor arrays that imitate tactile sensing and to explore future fabrication of highly intelligent e‑skins responsive to environmental changes. These arrays employ diverse transduction mechanisms and structural designs, enabling multi‑modal force, temperature, and humidity sensing, as well as self‑healing capabilities. The arrays achieve high‑resolution, rapid pressure mapping beyond human perception, and the accelerating innovations are poised to benefit science and human life.

Abstract

The skin is the largest organ of the human body and can sense pressure, temperature, and other complex environmental stimuli or conditions. The mimicry of human skin's sensory ability via electronics is a topic of innovative research that could find broad applications in robotics, artificial intelligence, and human–machine interfaces, all of which promote the development of electronic skin (e‐skin). To imitate tactile sensing via e‐skins, flexible and stretchable pressure sensor arrays are constructed based on different transduction mechanisms and structural designs. These arrays can map pressure with high resolution and rapid response beyond that of human perception. Multi‐modal force sensing, temperature, and humidity detection, as well as self‐healing abilities are also exploited for multi‐functional e‐skins. Other recent progress in this field includes the integration with high‐density flexible circuits for signal processing, the combination with wireless technology for convenient sensing and energy/data transfer, and the development of self‐powered e‐skins. Future opportunities lie in the fabrication of highly intelligent e‐skins that can sense and respond to variations in the external environment. The rapidly increasing innovations in this area will be important to the scientific community and to the future of human life.