Onsite Fabrication Unlocks Large-Area Electronic Skin for Robots and Wearables

Researchers from the Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute (ETRI) in collaboration with Professor Ahn Jun Seong's team at Korea University have developed a groundbreaking in-situ electronic skin fabrication technology. This new method allows for the production of large-area multimodal sensors directly in the field, without requiring specialized cleanroom or semiconductor processing facilities. This advancement significantly enhances the commercial viability of electronic skin for applications in intelligent robots and wearable devices.

Traditionally, creating flexible electronic sensors involves complex and costly semiconductor manufacturing steps, such as photomask processing and vacuum deposition. These processes necessitate expensive cleanroom environments and lead to intricate, high-cost fabrication procedures. The multi-stage nature of conventional methods also requires repeated substrate handling, increasing process management complexity and costs, especially when scaling up for large or curved surfaces like those found on humanoid robots.

To overcome these limitations, the research team introduced a maskless, in-situ process that utilizes only a UV laser and a 3D printer. This innovative approach eliminates the need for separate photomasks, enabling sensors to be fabricated directly at the desired locations. The team demonstrated the successful creation of large-area capacitive flexible tactile sensor arrays based on a microporous dielectric, achieving high reproducibility in a short timeframe. This simplification dramatically improves fabrication efficiency and reduces reliance on costly cleanroom infrastructure, while ensuring scalability and productivity.

The developed technology offers significant advantages, including reduced fabrication burdens and the ability to create sensors directly on objects with complex geometries, such as curved and contoured surfaces. This flexibility, combined with lower costs and rapid prototyping capabilities, makes the technology highly adaptable to various application environments, including robotics, IoT devices, and healthcare. ETRI has already demonstrated the system-level applicability of this electronic skin in robotic and human-machine interface scenarios, paving the way for practical implementation of next-generation intelligent tactile systems.