About the project
We are seeking a motivated PhD candidate to develop bio-inspired smart skin that emulates the remarkable sensory abilities of human skin. This technology will transform prosthetics and humanoid robotics, allowing these systems to engage with their environments with exceptional sensitivity, safety, and adaptability. Your work will help restore sensory perception for individuals with sensory loss and enhance the tactile responsiveness of humanoid robots for safer and more intuitive human-robot interactions.
The human skin is a marvel of natural engineering, offering real-time feedback to help us perceive and respond to our environment. With its high sensory resolution, the skin can detect pressure, temperature, and painful stimuli at the same spot, playing a crucial role in complex motor skills and environmental awareness. In contrast, current artificial skins are limited—they typically detect one type of stimulus or require larger areas to process multiple inputs. This restricts their use in critical fields where precise, human-like sensory feedback is essential for safety and natural interactions.
This project aims to bring that same multi-stimulus precision to artificial skin, enabling next-generation prosthetics and humanoid robots to respond to their environments with safety, sensitivity, and intuition. The student will develop novel flexible materials and sensors, fabricating and characterising devices in our state-of-the-art facilities, including our cleanroom and laboratories, the Printed Electronics Materials (PEM) Lab, and the Advanced Materials facilities.
You will be working in a highly collaborative environment as:
- a member of the Smart Electronic Materials and Systems (SEMS) research group in the School of Electronics and Computer Science (ECS)
- part of the Centre for Flexible Electronics and E-textiles (C-FLEET)
