An international group of scientists, inspired by the film “The Terminator” of 1984, decided to create a prototype of the robot from the film by James Cameron, endowing it with “living skin”. It will be recalled that the Terminator looked like a man, and his coating imitated human skin and had the ability to regenerate.
Currently, it is impossible to use real leather. Firstly, its structure is rather complicated, and secondly, such a coating will be disposable in case of numerous damages. Don’t forget about financial costs – it’s unlikely, real leather will cost very cheap. It is for this reason that the scientists decided to use the Ganoderma sessile mushroom, which is unpretentious to its living conditions.
The fungus was planted on a moving model of the Terminator with a height of only 7 cm. Five days were enough to completely cover the body with living skin. As the authors of the project reported, this mushroom has one interesting feature — it reacts to light and touch. That is, based on these characteristics, you can create a real sensor system, that is, the robot will be able to perform certain actions when acting from the outside.
In addition, the fungal mass on the body protects the electronic components of the robot, and in case of damage, it recovers quite quickly. Scientists also reported that such a “skin” can be used not only in robotics, but also in other industries, covering a wide variety of equipment.
