Cephalopods such as octopuses have a combination of a stretchable skin and color-tuning organs to control both posture and color for visual communication and disguise. We present an electroluminescent material that is capable of large uniaxial stretching and surface area changes while actively emitting light. Layers of transparent hydrogel electrodes sandwich a ZnS phosphor-doped dielectric elastomer layer, creating thin rubber sheets that change illuminance and capacitance under deformation. Arrays of individually controllable pixels in thin rubber sheets were fabricated using replica molding and were subjected to stretching, folding, and rolling to demonstrate their use as stretchable displays. These sheets were then integrated into the skin of a soft robot, providing it with dynamic coloration and sensory feedback from external and internal stimuli.

An intrinsically soft and stretchable multicolor display and touch interface is reported. Red, green, and blue pixels are formed separately by photopatterning transition-metal-doped ZnS embedded in silicone gels and transfer printing onto an elastomeric dielectric sheet. The device shows stable illumination while being stretched up to 200% area strain or under different deformation modalities. It also introduces capabilities for dynamic colorations and multipoint capacitive touch sensing.

Human skin contains highly specialized deformation receptors that allow us to intuitively and effortlessly interpret our surroundings. These sensors help us to localize touch and determine the degree of contact pressure. In addition, the innate understanding of our own body posture is also due to these mechanoreceptors. This work demonstrates a synthetic sensory-motor analog that can be 3D printed, using direct ink writing (DIW) onto soft, fluidic elastomer actuators (FEAs). This 3D printing technique uses two inks-one that is an ionically conductive hydrogel and another that is an electrically insulating silicone-which is then patterned and photopolymerized into stretchable capacitive sensors. In this paper, these sensors are used to enable tactile sensing and kinesthetic feedback in a pneumatically actuated haptic device. This capacitive skin enabled the device to detect a compressive force from a finger press of ~2 N, and an internal pressurization of as low as ~ 10 kPa.

This paper presents a machine learning approach to map outputs from an embedded array of sensors distributed throughout a deformable body to continuous and discrete virtual states, and its application to interpret human touch in soft interfaces. We integrate stretchable capacitors into a rubber membrane, and use a passive addressing scheme to probe sensor arrays in real-time. To process the signals from this array, we feed capacitor measurements into convolutional neural networks that classify and localize touch events on the interface. We implement this concept with a device called OrbTouch. To modularize the system, we use a supervised learning approach wherein a user defines a set of touch inputs and trains the interface by giving it examples; we demonstrate this by using OrbTouch to play the popular game Tetris. Our regression model localizes touches with mean test error of 0.09 mm, while our classifier recognizes gestures with a mean test accuracy of 98.8%. In a separate demonstration, we show that OrbTouch can discriminate between different users with a mean test accuracy of 97.6%. At test time, we feed the outputs of these models into a debouncing algorithm to provide a nearly error-free experience.

Silicon carbide (SiC) is one of the most versatile engineering ceramic materials in existence. Its low density (r % 3.21 g cc À1 ), high flexural strength (s % 550 MPa), high Young's modulus (E % 400 GPa), high hardness (%2,800 kg mm À2 ), low thermal expansion (CTE % 4 Â 10 À6 K À1 ), high thermal conductivity (K % 400 W m À1 K À1 ), and excellent thermochemical stability make it an ideal material for friction systems and abrasives, high-temperature filters and catalyst supports, and a vast array of other hightemperature industrial processes. SiC also has unique electronic properties including a wide electronic bandgap of 2.2-3.3 eV (c.f., Si % 1.5 eV), high electric breakdown strength of 2.4 Â 10 6 MV cm À1 (c.f., Si % 0.2 Â 10 6 MV cm À1 ), and high saturation velocity of 2 Â 10 7 cm s À1 (c.f., Si % 1 Â 10 7 cm s À1 ), that make it an attractive semiconducting material for applications such as high-voltage, high-power, and high-frequency electronics (e.g., in electric vehicles, grid storage devices), DC inverters for photovoltaics, short wavelength optoelectronics, high-temperature gas sensors, and MEMS. SiC is also an important material for space-and ground-based optics, such as telescope mirrors and support structures, for which low density, high specific stiffness (E SiC / r SiC % 100-125 MN m À1 kg À1 ), and thermal insensitivity are critical. SiC is second only to beryllium in specific strength [*] Prof.