Electronic skin to ‘feel’ in the metaverse: Samsung’s ambitious project

Samsung showed the first results of a research on the development of the e-skin, electronic skin through which people who have VR experiences in the metaverse will be able to experience tactile sensations – and not only, as we will see – as in reality. Technology allows to “simultaneously perceive multiple senses just like human skin“, like temperature and pain.

The South Korean company talks about an artificial leather capable of make us feel the warmth of a cup of coffee, or let us experience the sensation of walking barefoot on a beach of fine sand. It is a solution that artificially simulates the circuits of the human skin through which electric currents pass, “very complex system that transmits sensations to the brain through the nerves“.

Making an e-skin that is capable of detect temperature and force (pressure) exercised on it is not at all simple, and for this reason the results achieved must be considered exceptional. Once the technology is perfected, the fields of application will be many, from virtual reality in which we, through an avatar, will be able to perceive external stimuli such as heat, cold or even pain, up to medicine. And it is precisely in the latter area that pain due to pressure sores can be relieved, “40% of patients in hospitals suffer from“.

Studies on the e-skin have been underway for several years, and it is not only Samsung with its own that is committed to the subject Future Technology Promotion Project. The California Institute of Technology is also developing an electronic skin capable of measuring vital signs, while a group of researchers from the Graduate School of Engineering of the University of Tokyo has made a skin in flexible material that detects heartbeat and electrical impulses from the movement of the muscles. The solution from Samsung wants however go beyond: in this case it is a question of simulating in all respects the behavior of human skin, and therefore not only of detecting vital parameters.