Virtual reality has given us the sensations of sight and sound, but now engineers have created a sensory fingertip to mimic the sense of touch.

The team of Chinese researchers used the practical example of being able to virtually pet a cat. They said that one of the motivators of this project was the isolation of COVID-19 lockdowns and the possibility to, at least virtually, hug a family member.

While previous technology consisted of bulky gloves, the fingertips, similar to the thickness of human skin, let the wearer feel pressure, vibration and textures. By adjusting the frequency and voltage of the signal, they are able to mimic the roughness of certain textures like sandpaper or rocks or the smoothness of silk or glass. The results were published in the September 2022 edition of Science Advances.

This technology could be used on gloves to assist the likes of firefighters, astronauts or deep-sea divers whose bulky, insulated safety suits interfere with the sense of touch, the team says.

A common weakness of electrical-based stimulators is the inability to precisely stimulate one kind of receptor without activating others, says Zhengbao Yang, one of the researchers on the project. “In our future work, we want to overcome this challenge.”

The team also envisions a Braille tool for the visually impaired or a virtual shopping experience whereby the shopper can feel the fabric of the clothes.