Colored, Self-Healing Hydrogel Skin For Robots Created By Researchers

As the age where robots and artificial intelligence pioneer comes near, researchers are troubled by future problems as well. Luckily, robots having colored complexion along with self-healing hydrogel skin material was discovered by researchers to avoid necessary problems in the future.

According to South China Morning Post, researchers from the Southeast University in China have claimed that they have finally solved the problem of dull and lightly colored robot complexions. The project that they said to be the solution was shown to be a self-healing hydrogel. The solution then will pave the way for the problem that robots need to have replaceable skin upon damage.

With that said, the reason of the project was explained to be that pale colored robots may result in social problems in the future. The study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PSAS) wrote that self-healing hydrogels weren’t yet deemed to be applicable on all robots. However, it could be used in a variety of applications as the study has noted.

Furthermore, the self-healing hydrogels developed by the research team was described to be double layered. The first layer was defined to showcase the structural colors of the hydrogel while the second layer holds responsible for its self-healing capability as Phys Org reported.

Upon reaching the end result of the experiment, the team discovered that only a barely visible tiny scar appeared after cutting the self-healing hydrogel in half. Rest assured, the structure still held its color as it is deemed to withstand other real-world conditions as well as Professor Zhao Yuanjin of the State Key Laboratory of Bioelectronics stated.

“The human skin, for instance, can ‘feel’ wherever you touch it, and such high-density distribution of sensing has not been achieved by any man-made sensors,” Fu Chenglong, an associate professor of robotics with the department of mechanical and energy engineering at Tsinghua University stated. Nonetheless, the whole team still believes that artificial skin in robots remains a huge challenge.

The self-healing hydrogel idea was then identified to have sprouted from chameleons, butterflies, and peacocks having their colorful distinctions in their body parts and skin. It was said that these kinds of animals get their characteristics through a pigment or periodic nanostructures in their body which changes upon interacting with light.