Scientists have demonstrated the possibility of creating artificial skin that can mimic a squid's natural ability to camouflage with the flip of a switch.
The smart material is inspired by biological chromatophores, which create patterns that can morph to mimic patterns seen in nature, the University of Bristol reported. A new paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface, decribes the design, mathematical modeling, simulation and analysis of a groundbreaking biomimetic pattern generation system.
The "artificial skin" would be made from electroactive dielectric elastomer that has the ability to copy the actions of chromatophores (small pigmented cells that can expand and contract to change the material's color and texture) seen in squids. The artificial chromatophores can be modeled in linear arrays of cells to mimic dynamic patterns.
"Our ultimate goal is to create artificial skin that can mimic fast acting active camouflage and be used for smart clothing such as cloaking suits and dynamic illuminated clothing," said Aaron Fishman, Visiting Fellow in Engineering Mathematics. "The cloaking suit could be used to blend into a variety of environments, such as in the wild. It could also be used for [signaling] purposes, for example search and rescue operations when people who are in danger need to stand out."
In the future, the researchers how to improve propagation control within the artificial skin system, and use simple local rules to create additional patterns. They also plan to carry out a more extensive analysis of potential patterns that could be achieved through the system and developing a model that could simulate patterns in two-dimensional array systems.
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