People can hold hands with a loved one thousands of miles away with a new gizmo.
The soft fingertip device gives authentic feelings of touch, boffins say. It works by simulating all four touch receptors in the human finger using vibrations at different speeds and strengths.
The team behind the gadget, called a bio-inspired haptic (BAMH) system, reckon they can create a glove which can recreate the feeling of holding a hand.
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Professor Helge Wurdemann, from University College London who worked on the device, said: “We believe we have the technology that would enable us to design a glove.
“We’re looking into [combining] multiple fingers. We want to understand (if) can we detect, over some time a degradation in (touch) sensitivity.
“And then we want to feed that data back to the clinician to then understand if they can, maybe adopt their therapy in order to slow down the loss in (touch) perception.”
(Image: British Science Association/PA)
Dr Sara Abad, from University College London, added: “Unfortunately, with video calls there is a barrier. For social bonding, which is important, you need touch, but video calls don’t provide that.
“The technology offers a way of incorporating touch into our virtual social interactions and can also act as a diagnostic tool for touch perception for patients, who experience sensitivity loss.”
Experts say a person in London would be able to “hold” the hand of a dying relative in Australia for example.
The tech could be used for people losing their sense of touch such as those with metacarpal tunnel syndrome or diabetes.
And it may be used to tell the difference between healthy and cancerous tissue, according to the findings published in the journal Nature Communications.
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