ARTIFICIAL skin covering prosthetics and humanoid robots might look like the real thing, but grasp an artificial hand in yours and the difference is apparent.
Fake skin responds very differently to being touched, discovered John-John Cabibihan at the National University of Singapore and colleagues from Italy, Norway and France ().
They subjected silicone or polyurethane fingertips to a battery of physical tests to explore how they stretch, deform and spring back into shape when compared to real fingertips. The tests involved tapping the fingertip on a surface, and deforming it with a probe.
Results showed that the two artificial…
