A team of researchers from the University of Tokyo develops a biohybrid robot with a face made of human skin

The two-millimeter-thick skin is less complex than human skin. It has fewer layers, but it is extremely flexible.

In Tokyo, a team of researchers has just presented a new generation of biohybrid robots. These are machines that mix completely artificial components and elements from the living world. They have already developed a mini-robot equipped with rat muscles and on Tuesday June 25, they showed, for the first time, a robot with a face made of human skin.

If we almost flirt with science fiction, researchers from the University of Tokyo are truly convinced that many robots in the future will be biohybrids because current 100% mechanical robots have limits. These machines, whether they resemble animals or humans, know how to move in a straight line or turn when they have enough space, but they always lack finesse and precision. These robots have difficulty adapting to uneven terrain or adjusting the direction of their movement in a confined space. Hence the idea of ​​trying to incorporate biological muscles into them, capable of creating much more complex and precise movements.

It is by following this concept that these Japanese researchers created a robot with animal tissues. A team led by Professor Shoji Takeuchi has just presented a small bipedal robot five centimeters high which incorporates rat muscles. They did not take muscles directly from an animal. They grew these muscle tissues from rat cells. A bit like we do with meats developed in the laboratory. Then they created a mini-skeleton with sort of plastic hips and feet connected by organic muscles. And, to make this mini-robot walk, they send electrical impulses alternately in each leg. Exactly like our brain does when it gives an order to a muscle in our body. This small biohybrid biped can walk naturally.

For now, this robot is very slow. It takes almost two minutes to travel one centimeter and it only works in water because its muscles dry out too quickly in the open air, but it may be the basis of a small technological revolution.

This same team wants to give a human face to its robots. The researchers presented a robot face wearing skin created by culturing human tissue in the same way. This two millimeter thick skin is less complex than human skin. She has fewer layers, but she is alive and extremely flexible. It is attached directly to the artificial surface of the robot’s face and therefore gives a more human, more natural appearance to its mechanical movements. If the machine imitates, for example, a smile, its skin moves and returns to its place naturally. Here too, these are the first tests, but the team from the University of Tokyo is very enthusiastic. She has lots of ideas. She thinks that these robots with human skin will be able, for example, to help better understand the phenomenon of wrinkles or make it possible to limit the testing of cosmetics or drugs on animals.