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Researchers created an artificial skin that enables users to feel someone’s touch from a distance.
A team of scientists from Northwestern University developed the skin, which is a soft, flexible sheet that is six square inches wide. Called the “epidermal VR” system, it is wirelessly powered, eliminating the need for batteries. The device is also wirelessly connected to a touchscreen of a tablet or smartphone. It has 32 vibrating parts called actuators. These actuators communicate the touch sensation feature to the wearer of the artificial skin.
When a user makes contact with a touchscreen, the actuators receive data from a gadget that the system is connected to. The actuators mimic the pressure and pattern impressed on the touchscreen, and the person wearing the artificial skin feels the pattern drawn on the screen.
To test the device’s effectiveness, scientists had a grandmother wear the skin while it was connected to a screen on which her granddaughter was watching a video. When the granddaughter touched the screen, the grandmother felt her granddaughter’s touch. Another test found that a player of a fighting video game who was wearing multiple layers of the artificial skin could feel the strikes of his virtual opponent.
Professor John Rogers, the lead researcher, believes that the innovation’s selling point is that it allows virtual reality users to experience tactile sense and not just visual and auditory. He commented that virtual reality is an emerging area of technology that has been focusing mostly on using the senses of sight and hearing. The sense of touch has remained largely unexplored and promises great potential for innovation.