“Thin Skinned” Virtual Reality Gloves at your Fingertips

The expression “thin skinned” may no longer only bear a negative connotation as this concept could become the foundation for creating a new generation of virtual reality gloves. That’s right, a University of Illinois team of researchers have found a way to design and produce flexible circuits combined with strips of gold held in place with polymer that could act as a second layer of thin skin. Once the finger-looking creation is positioned on someone’s fingertips, the electric current produced from touching a surface brings about a physical sensation on the part of the subject “wearing” the virtual fingertips.

With a tiny bit of extrapolation, this means that it could open the door to a brand new generation of virtual reality gloves or even an entire suit that could process electric current that would in turn be “translated” into physical sensations. From that point on, such virtual reality gloves could allow for limitless opportunities, including professional training in specialized fields of medicine where precision is of the utmost importance. These polymer-based structures could also be used for serious burn victims or amputees. The possibilities are almost endless with this new branch of virtual reality and it seems that medicine might be an interesting area for developing new and more efficient ways of healing human beings.

Source: TFOT