Inspired by human skin, a team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has developed a system combining artificial skin with control algorithms and used it to create the first autonomous humanoid robot with a full body of artificial skin, which was announced on October 10, 2019, in Germany. /VCG Photo

The biggest obstacle in developing robot skin has always been computing capacity. Human skin has around five million receptors. Efforts to implement continuous processing of data from sensors in artificial skin soon run up against limits. /VCG Photo

Professor Gordon Cheng and his team do not monitor the skin cells continuously, but rather with an event-based system. This reduces the processing effort by up to 90 percent. The trick: The individual cells transmit information from their sensors only when values are changed. This is similar to the way the human nervous system works. /VCG Photo

The artificial skin developed by Cheng and his team consists of hexagonal cells about the size of a two-euro coin. Each is equipped with a microprocessor and sensors to detect contact, acceleration, proximity and temperature. Such artificial skin enables robots to perceive their surroundings in much greater detail and with more sensitivity. /VCG Photo