The main purpose of creating a robot face with living skin is to develop more human-like cyborgs that can interact closely with humans, such as in healthcare, service, companion, and humanoid robots. The living skin allows the robots to heal and feel like humans, and can potentially have sensory functions like touch and temperature detection.
The skin is attached to the robot face using "perforation-type anchors." These anchors perforate the resin base, creating small cavities that the tissue fills in. This method mimics the flexible, strong ligaments found beneath human and animal skin, allowing the skin to move with the robot's mechanical components without tearing or peeling away.
Scientists from the University of Tokyo developed the skin-covered robot face using a mixture of human skin cells grown on a collagen model and placed on top of a 3D-printed resin base3.