The University of Tokyo researchers have developed a flexible artificial skin that could give robots a humanlike sense of touch. The team manufactured a type of “skin” capable of sensing pressure and another capable of sensing temperature.

And they add that there is no need to stop at simply imitating the functions of human skin. “It will be possible in the near future to make an electronic skin that has functions that human skin lacks,” the researchers write in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Future artificial skins could incorporate sensors not only for pressure and temperature, but also for light, humidity, strain or sound, they add.