Wearable, multifunctional human-machine interface (Video)

The soft, flexible, HMI device can also serve as robotic skin, relaying information back to the user.

Researchers from the University of Houston developed a multifunctional ultra-thin wearable electronic device imperceptible to the wearer.

"Everything is very thin, just a few microns thick," says Cunjiang Yu, Bill D. Cook Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Houston and lead author for a paper on the research. Yu is also a principal investigator at the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH. "You will not be able to feel it."

It has the potential to work as a prosthetic skin for a robotic hand or other robotic devices, with a robust human-machine interface that allows it to automatically collect information and relay it back to the wearer.