---
title: "Robot Skin Now Gets Bruised When Punched, Horrifyingly"
description: "A team of engineers developed a new artificial skin for prosthetic limbs or robots that actually forms bruises whenever it gets bonked or damaged."
date: "2021-06-16"
modified: "2021-06-16"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/robot-skin-bruised-punched"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
tags:
  - "artificial skin"
  - "health"
  - "prosthetic limb"
  - "robots"
---

# Robot Skin Now Gets Bruised When Punched, Horrifyingly

![A team of engineers developed a new artificial skin for prosthetic limbs or robots that actually forms bruises whenever it gets bonked or damaged.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/bruise.jpg>)
*Badlyricpolice via Flickr / Futurism  https://www.flickr.com/people/badlyricpolice/ \<em\>Image: \<a href="https://www.flickr.com/people/badlyricpolice/" target="\_blank"\>Badlyricpolice via Flickr / Futurism\</a\>\</em\>*

A team of engineers developed a new kind of artificial skin for robots or prosthetic limbs that actually bruises up when it gets hit, providing both a valuable medical tool *and* a way to check your progress when you're fighting off a killer robot.

Give it a good enough bump, press, or shock and the artificial skin will activate a colorful hydrogel that forms a big purple spot as if it were really bruising — just like you! — [according to research](<https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsami.1c04911>) published in the American Chemical Society journal *Applied Materials & Interfaces*.

The Chinese University of Hong Kong engineers behind the artificial skin expect it to be especially helpful for soft robots or people who wear prosthetic limbs and aren't provided with [the sensory feedback](<https://futurism.com/scientists-invent-artificial-skin-feel-pain>) to know they've bumped into something and potentially hurt themselves or damaged their limb, [according to a press release](<https://phys.org/news/2021-06-bruisable-artificial-skin-prosthetics-robots.html>). In other words, this is (supposedly) not just another trick that Terminator-like robots could use to blend in among us unsuspecting humans.

The cool thing about the skin is that it takes sharp pressure to cause a bruise — someone with a prosthetic leg wouldn't have to watch it turn purple and wait the two-to-five hours for the bruise to fade every time they bend their knee to take a step.

For now, the skin seems to be in the proof-of-concept phase. The researchers tested it out by taping a small strip to someone's knee and bumping it against a piece of metal, so there don't seem to be any entire limbs — or *undercover killer robots* — that are entirely coated in the material just yet. It's also unclear how well the mostly translucent, pale yellow artificial skin will work with different skin tones — for now, the scientists seemed more focused on getting it to work at all before focusing on customization.

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)