Researchers in Singapore have developed an "electronic skin" capable of recreating the sense of touch , an innovation they hope will allow people with prosthetic limbs to detect objects, as well as feel textures or even temperature and pain.

Called ACES or Asynchronous Coded Electronic Skin, the device is made up of 100 small sensors and is about a square centimeter in size.

Researchers at the National University of Singapore point out that it can process information faster than the human nervous system, being able to recognize 20 to 30 different textures . Plus, you can read Braille letters with over 90% accuracy.

"Humans need to swipe to feel the texture, but in this case, the skin, with a single touch, can detect textures of different roughness," said research team leader Benjamin Tee , adding that Artificial Intelligence algorithms ( IA) allow the device to learn quickly.

In a demonstration, Dr. Tee has shown how the device can detect that a soft tension ball is soft and that a solid plastic ball is hard. "When you lose your sense of touch, you essentially go numb ... and prosthetic wearers face that problem," Tee said. "So, by recreating an artificial version of the skin for their prosthetic devices, they can hold one hand and feel the heat and that it is soft," he added.

Tee explained that the concept was inspired by a scene from the "Star Wars" movie trilogy in which the character Luke Skywalker loses his right hand and is replaced by robotics, apparently capable of experiencing tactile sensations again.

The electronic skin is still in an experimental stage, but there has been "tremendous interest," especially from the medical community, Tee notes.

Additionally, similar patents developed by his team include a transparent skin that can repair itself when torn and a light-emitting material for portable electronic devices.

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