Biomimetic Skins Enable Strain‐Perception‐Strengthening Soft Morphing

Abstract

Abstract Biological soft tissues are typically characterized of strain mechanical stiffening for injury prevention, yet the capability to achieve active awareness via perception strengthening still remains a challenge. However, creatures have projected their 2D or 3D deformation in a safe way via perception regulation. In this work, strain‐perception‐strengthening (SPS) enabled soft skins that allow the dynamic transformation from tactile to pain‐sensing are proposed. The synthetic skin featured with elastic, conductive, and adaptive properties is composed of elastomeric thin‐film and assembled graphene nanosheets with an interlocked structural interface. In the SPS‐enabled sensory system, the strain‐perception‐threshold value can be regulated from ≈7.2% to ≈95.3%. The integrated skin‐like system can effectively imitate the normal tactile and pain feeling of soft tissues (e.g., unidirectional stretching of muscle tendon and irregular stretching deformation of hand skin). Furthermore, inspired by the pufferfish, a bionic pufferfish with synthetic skin is designed, enabling it to sensitively capture the external mechanical stimuli such as tiny airflow and finger touch, and further inflate itself to a 3D deformation determined by the SPS effect. The concept of soft skins with SPS effect demonstrates potential fields in safe human‐machine interaction, smart prosthetics and soft robotics.