Advanced Interfacial Design for Electronic Skins with Customizable Functionalities and Wearability

Abstract

Electronic skins (E‐skins), which are intelligent extensions of the human skin, are in great demand because of the rapid development of information technology and intelligence in human civilization. Essentially, E‐skin systems are composed of functional and interface components. The function portion carries out various functions like sensing, power production, and therapy. In addition to ensuring consistent wear and comfort, the interface of the E‐skin system is necessary for the transfer of energy or mass between the skin and the functional components of the E‐skin system. The interface serves as the foundation, conduit, and link between the skin and functional components of E‐skin systems. The wearability and functionality of the E‐skin system are significantly impacted by the interfacial adhesion and the intermediate effect. It is crucial to build the interface in accordance with the functions of the E‐skin system. However, there are few reviews on the impact of the interface on the functionality and wearability of E‐skins. Here, the design of the E‐skin interface is thoroughly reviewed, taking into account how skin adhesion mechanisms affect wearability and function. At last, the future development direction and perspective of next‐generation E‐skin systems are presented.

Latest developments and trends in electronic skin devices

“…For example, e-skins with good biocompatibility and degradability [230][231][232] , suitable for medical and bioelectronic applications; e-skins having high transparency [159,233] , suitable for photovoltaic and display applications. In fact, there have been e-skins with special capabilities such as light-emitting [234][235][236] , thermal management [200] , hydrophobicity [237,238] , UV resistance [239] , electromagnetic radiation resistance [200,240] , and fire alarm [241] . 4.…”

Advanced Design of Soft Robots with Artificial Intelligence

“…As the primary mechanoreceptors of the human, the skin plays an important role to perceive various stimuli, such as tactile, temperature and humidity [117][118][119]. The research focused on the electronic skins (e-skins) that can emulate the skin of human body are of significant importance for the soft robots with AI [58,[120][121][122][123][124][125][126][127][128][129][130][131], which is inspiring and challenging. A variety of technologies have been developed for the fabrication of the tactile sensors and e-skins with precise and rapid sensing abilities, such as piezoresistive [58], capacitive [59], triboelectric technologies [60,61] and so on.…”

An intelligent spinal soft robot with self-sensing adaptability

“…Current research effort about sensor-actuator-integrated soft robots mainly focuses on sensing based on e-skins 17 , 18 , 19 , 20 or visual systems 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 , 25 , 26 with applications in surrounding detection (e.g., pH, ion, oil, blow flow, etc. ), 27 , 28 , 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 self-body perception (e.g., physical interaction monitoring, self-motion monitoring, etc.…”