It is no longer science fiction, we really do have the technology to rebuild veterans who have lost limbs in combat so that they can feel “human touch” again.
And just like the “Six Million Dollar Man,” the rebuilt veteran would “feel…better, stronger, faster.”
Researches have created a sensor that detects temperature, pressure and humidity simultaneously such that it recreates the human sense of touch.
One day the sensor could be used to create “electronic skin,” which would cover prosthetic limbs so that amputees could feel the world around them again, according to Live Science.
That’s not all, however, because the new sensor is actually more sensitive than normal human touch.
“If you use your finger to touch your skin or hand, the pressure applied is in the kilopascal range,” said researcher Zhenan Bao, a professor of chemical engineering at Stanford University, referring to a unit of pressure. “Our sensor can detect pressure that is a few hundred times less than that gentle touch.”
Bao and her colleagues tested their sensor by placing it on a man’s wrist to measure his pulse.
They found that the sensor could actually detect far more than a normal human finger.
When a human finger touches the wrist to get a pulse it only measures the first, and strongest, push of blood as it travels through the vein in the wrist from the heart.
The sensor, however, can detect that first surge, a second weaker wave as the blood bounces off the person’s hand and finally a third very weak wave that researchers use to measure the stiffness and the build up of cholesterol in arteries.
That means that the sensor could help a user detect a heart attack or stroke before it happens.
The next steps for Bao and her team is to make the device wireless, turn it into artificial skin and eventually figure out a way to transmit the electric signal the device creates to the neurosystem in the brain.
“That will be a big challenge,” Bao said.
Bao and her team have faced such challenges before, however, and they have come up with innovative solutions.
In 2011 they developed a touch sensor that could stretch like human skin and in 2012 they developed a version that could heal itself after it was scratched.