Full-Textile Less-Wires Large-Area Flexible Robot Electronic Skin for Human–Robot Interaction

In the future, intelligent robots are expected to collaborate closely with humans, creating an urgent demand for the development of robot electronic skin(e-skin) that plays a crucial role in human-machine interaction and safety collision avoidance. However, developing a robot e-skin that can cover the entire surface of a robot on a large scale still faces significant challenges in terms of flexibility, lightweight design, less-wires, and reduced computational complexity in signal processing to enhance robustness and biocompatibility. Inspired by the biological structure of the epidermis and dermis in human skin, this paper proposes a full-textile, less-wires, flexible robot e-skin suitable for large-area applications that can simultaneously and in real-time detect key tactile information such as touch position and force. The robot e-skin employs a cotton textile substrate integrated with a sensing layer of graphene, carbon nanotubes, and natural silk sericin, achieving lightweight and flexible mechanical properties. Integration with the CR5 collaborative robot demonstrates the tremendous potential of this electronic skin in enhancing human-machine interaction and safety collision avoidance.