Singapore (VNA) - Singapore researchers have developed "electronicskin" capable of recreating a sense of touch, an innovation they hope willallow people with prosthetic limbs to detect objects, as well as feel texture,or even temperature and pain.

The device, called Asynchronous CodedElectronic Skin (ACES), is made up of 100 small sensors and is about 1 sq.cm insize.

The researchers at the National University of Singapore said it canprocess information faster than the human nervous system, is able to recognise20 to 30 different textures and can read Braille letters with more than 90 percentaccuracy.

According to researchteam leader Benjamin Tee, humans need to slide to feel texture, but in thiscase the skin, with just a single touch, is able to detect textures ofdifferent roughness. AI algorithms let the device learn quickly, he added.

A demonstration showed the device could detectthat a squishy stress ball was soft, and determine that a solid plastic ballwas hard.

Tee said the conceptwas inspired by a scene from the Star Wars movie trilogy in which thecharacter Luke Skywalker loses his right hand and it is replaced by a roboticone, seemingly able to experience touch sensations again.

The technology is still in the experimentalstage, but there has been "tremendous interest", especially fromthe medical community, Tee added.

Previously,the team developed similar patents such as a transparent skin that can repairitself when torn and a light-emitting material for wearable electronic devices./.