Participants:
Designing consumer products involving body contact requires assessing ‘skin feel’ or ‘mouth feel.’ Human skin’s sensory receptors detect pressure, temperature, and pain, influencing texture perception. Texture is crucial in product acceptance, from the mouth free of food, the feeling or cosmetics or fabric on our skin. Existing tactile sensing units often do not focus on texture, however, this is key for product assessment. The project proposes a soft skin patch with a robotic actuator for bio-inspired texture assessment, enabling rapid product development and technology transfer to the Swiss Industry.
Research partner:
EPFL is Europe’s most cosmopolitan technical university. It welcomes students, professors and collaborators of more than 120 nationalities. EPFL has both a Swiss and international vocation and focuses on three missions: teaching, research and innovation.
Implementation partner:
Nestlé’s Research and Development organization is the largest in the food and beverage industry. They have over 4,100 employees working at 23 sites worldwide. Their R&D organization encompasses Nestlé Research, which works on cross-category, fundamental research, and our wider Nestlé R&D organization dedicated to category-focused product and systems development.
