Manufacture of ‘Robert’ in Japan with cover that looks like ‘real leather’

Tokyo. Japanese scientists have developed a robot with a covering that looks like living skin using human cells.

In the description published in Cell Reports Physical Science Journal, the Japanese scientist said, “They used a ‘gel filled with skin-forming cells’ to make a ‘robot with a cover like living skin’.”

Biohybrid robot experts hope that this technology will one day play a role in the invention of androids with human-like presence and capabilities.

“We hope that the scientific study of living systems and mechanisms (physiology) will help inform the structure of the muscles and facial expressions,” said the team led by Professor Shoji Takeuchi.

The new material, covered in lifelike skin, often made of silicone rubber, may mark a step forward from traditional ‘humanoid robots’, but it cannot sweat or heal itself.

The scientists’ goal is to ‘build a robot with inherent self-healing capabilities in biological skin’, but they are not there yet.

In previous studies, they studied how collagen can be repaired in lab-grown skin cuts by covering them with a robotic finger and brought out the results.

To describe what they describe as a ‘natural smile’ that moves as a fluid, they placed the skin-like tissue inside the robot’s cavity after it was gelatinized (gelatinized), a process inspired by the ligaments of real human skin, a process that breaks the intermolecular bonds of starch molecules in the presence of water and heat.