SPECIAL ISSUE ON SENSITIVE SKIN
Authors: LUMELSKY V. , SHUR M. S. , WAGNER S. 
Published: January 2005

Sensitive Skins are large-area, flexible arrays of sensors integrated onto the entire surface of machines. Sensitive skin will endow these machines with the senses of proximity, touch, pressure, temperature, and chemical/biological agents. Thus Sensitive Skin will make possible the use of unsupervised machines in unstructured, unpredictable surroundings. Sensitive Skin will make machines "cautious" and thus friendly to their environment. Sencitive Skin will revolutionize service industries, make important contributions to human prosthetics, and augment human sensing when fashioned into clothing. Being transducers massive data flow, Sensitive Skin devices will make yet another advance in the information revolution.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) sponsored the NSF-DARPA Sensitive Skin Workshop that took place on October 14 and 15, 1999, at the Key Bridge Marriott Hotel in Arlington, Virginia. The purpose of the Workshop was to find consensus on the nascent Sensitive Skin technology, and provide recommendations for the research community and government agencies. The Workshop covered principles, methodology, and prototypes of sensing skin-like devices and related intelligence and software. It drew more than 40 participants from universities, companies, government laboratories, and government research agencies.

Sensitive Skin devices present a new paradigm in sensing and control. Sensitive Skin is an enabling technology with far reaching applications — from medicine and biology to industry and defense — which are not possible today. Systems based on Sensitive Skin will be pivotal for progress in two broad areas.

1) Machines in unstructured environments. Sensitive Skin will enable moving machinery to acquire real-time information about surrounding objects. Hence, use it to operate safely in unstructured environments that cannot be modified at will and must be accepted as they are (in contrast to structured environments, such as a factory floor, whose design or redesign is only a matter of cost and effciency).

2) Augmentation of human sensing. In limb prosthetics and artificial skin grafts, Sensitive Skin will supplant the sensing ability of human skin. In wearable sensor clothing, Sensitive Skin will augment human sensing with full-body sensors and will provide sensing beyond human capability and wireless communication.

The workshop participants discussed potential applications of Sensitive skin; envisioned skin materials, for embedding sensors, wiring, and control electronics; packaging; sensor layout, devices, and on-sensor signal processing; and research directions and goals.

During the Workshop the participants alternated between working together in one single group, and splitting into four working sections — Materials, Devices, Signal Processing, and Applications — to chart a roadmap for research and development on the new sensing paradigm represented by sensitive skin systems. Because the workshop was held in one-and-a-half days, this report should be viewed as a first effort to map out new territory, and as an invitation to join the exploration!