Artificial skin sensation for neuroprosthetic hands

Abstract The loss of an upper limb leads to severe psychological and physical impairment. Neuroprosthetic hands with sensory feedback have restorative potential. Recreating the sensing ability of human skin using flexible sensors, a critical component of sensory feedback, has been demonstrated to improve functionality and users' satisfaction with prosthetic hands. The skin is a powerful and sophisticated organ for perception in the environment. People can feel and perceive the real world due to many nonuniform receptors (mechano, thermal, pain) embedded in the human skin. In recent years, new materials and fabrication strategies have been developed to make the artificial skin close to or even beyond the sensing ability of human skin, which could have profound implications for prosthetics. Here, we review the sensing mechanism of the human skin and the design methods of flexible sensors for mimicking the corresponding ability, covering the sense of force, thermal, and pain. We further discuss the future opportunities and challenges of high‐performance flexible neuroprosthetic sensors.