Biomimetic metamaterial–based interface for decoding heterogeneous mechanodermal activity

The human skin acts as a dynamic biomechanical interface that conveys critical physiological and behavioral information through spatiotemporally distributed deformations. Because of the limited capabilities of current sensing technologies, the spatiotemporal diversity of its mechanical cues has remained underused to date, preventing these mechanisms from being used to capture and decode the full spectrum of underlying physiological states. In this work, we define this heterogeneous set of mechanical signals as mechanodermal activity (MDA) and introduce the biomimetic metamaterial-based interface (BMMI), an engineered auxetic metamaterial substrate that reproduces the microrelief and mechanoreceptor architecture of natural skin. The BMMI allows selective capture of diverse MDA signals from adjacent skin regions with simultaneous signal amplification and noise suppression and permits straightforward modulation to accommodate various scenarios. Combined with bespoke algorithms, the wireless BMMI device decodes MDA accurately and robustly for multimodal communication interfaces, unleashing applications in health care monitoring and human-machine interaction.