Founded by a Stanford postdoctoral fellow, a flexible electronic skin company has secured tens of millions in financing and has obtained orders from multiple listed companies and leading automakers | Exclusive Report by Yingke

Author | Huang Nan

Editor | Peng Xiaoqiu

Yingke learned that Tujian Technology (Beijing) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Tujian Technology") recently completed an angel - round financing of tens of millions of yuan. This round was exclusively invested by Zhaowei Electromechanical, a leading domestic listed company in the micro - drive field. The financing funds will be mainly used to increase investment in R & D and product iteration, expand production capacity, optimize the supply chain, and deepen industrial cooperation to improve the technical ecosystem layout.

Founded in January 2020, "Tujian Technology" has long focused on the R & D and manufacturing of multi - modal flexible tactile sensors and flexible electronic skin tactile perception systems to promote their application in fields such as embodied intelligent robots, intelligent perception cockpits, flexible perception wearable devices, and flexible health monitoring. The company's headquarters is located in Beijing, with wholly - owned subsidiaries in Shenzhen and Guangzhou. Meanwhile, it has established a cutting - edge technology exploration center in Silicon Valley, the United States.

Lai Jiancheng, the founder and CEO, once conducted post - doctoral research at the Bao Group of Stanford University in the United States, one of the world's strongest flexible electronics laboratories. He has long been engaged in research in the fields of flexible electronic skin materials, devices, and system integration. He has successively presided over and undertaken national key R & D plan disruptive technology innovation projects and national natural science foundation youth fund projects, and has rich technical R & D experience in the field of flexible electronics.

A dexterous hand equipped with Tujian Technology's flexible electronic skin (Image source/Enterprise)

In recent years, flexible electronic skin has moved beyond the basic R & D stage and entered a rapid commercialization process. With the solution of problems such as insufficient material consistency, signal crosstalk, and immature large - scale production processes, its functions have been continuously upgraded. Compared with the limitations of previous products that could only detect single pressure or temperature signals, multi - modal perception fusion has now been achieved, enabling the simultaneous capture of complex information such as pressure, temperature, material, and sliding.

Currently, the flexible electronic skin technology is in an important stage of transition from the laboratory to industrialization. For a long time, there have been several major application pain points in the field of flexible electronics. Firstly, the materials lack intrinsic stretchability, and their conductive and sensing properties are prone to failure when stretched, limiting stable operation in complex dynamic environments. Secondly, due to the single modality and low integration of tactile sensors, multi - modal collaborative perception cannot be achieved, making it difficult to support the multi - dimensional tactile needs of robots.

Lai Jiancheng told Yingke that although the robot industry has developed rapidly in recent years, truly usable human - like electronic skin products are still scarce. Especially in application scenarios such as high - dynamic deformation, large - area coverage, and complex tactile perception, existing technologies often struggle to meet the needs of robots for high - order tactile feedback and intelligent interaction. "When robots have the tactile perception ability of 'human - like skin', it may reshape the underlying logic of human - machine interaction. This process is not a scattered combination of sensors, but rather how to build a multi - modal perception network that mimics human skin."

In view of the above implementation difficulties, Lai Jiancheng founded "Tujian Technology". Inspired by his research on the biological tactile mechanism during his time at Stanford, he developed a stretchable multi - modal flexible electronic skin based on the principle of human skin tactile perception, achieving independent innovation breakthroughs at the material and device levels.

This electronic skin is integrated with a high - density sensor array, which can directly measure real physical signals on the first contact surface, such as pressure, temperature, shear stress, surface texture, and proximity sense, covering all tactile information. The standard product can integrate 400 sensors per square centimeter, and the laboratory technology can reach 100,000 sensors per square centimeter. The spatial resolution is 0.5mm, and the laboratory technology can reach 30um. The force resolution is 0.01N/cm², the measurement range is 0.1kPa - 1MPa, the maximum proximity sense perception distance is 20cm, and the sampling frequency is 1 - 1000Hz.

The new - generation multiplicative electronic skin has overcome the technical barrier that traditional flexible devices in the past had difficulty integrating multi - modal functions on a single chip. It has the advantages of high spatial resolution and high - sensitivity perception, achieving "bionic perception and feedback" in the true sense. At the same time, this product also has a service life of over one million times and excellent characteristics such as impact resistance, water resistance, anti - interference, and low power consumption.

The electronic skin developed by Tujian Technology (Image source/Enterprise)

In the material layer, "Tujian Technology" has independently developed an intrinsically stretchable flexible material system. This system can stably maintain its electrical properties under high - stretch conditions, with a stretchability of over 100% and 100% recovery after stretching. It can be bent with a radius of less than 5mm, suitable for various irregular non - developable surfaces without occupying internal space.

The advantage of this stretchable property is that it systematically solves the fundamental contradiction between the stretchability of materials and their electrical properties, providing a new material basis for high - performance stretchable electronic skin.

Take the bionic dexterous hand ZWHAND, which the team collaborated on with Zhaowei Electromechanical, as an example. It is equipped with Tujian Technology's flexible electronic skin tactile perception system, featuring a high perception sensitivity of 0.01N/cm² and a high sampling frequency of over 100Hz. Through the high - density sensor array, it can accurately identify the shape and material of objects, with higher operation accuracy in specific scenarios. Its temperature perception module also expands the environmental interaction dimensions of the dexterous hand.

The bionic dexterous hand ZWHAND (Image source/Enterprise)

Yingke learned that currently, "Tujian Technology" has reached cooperation agreements with several listed companies and leading automobile manufacturers. In the future, it will focus on upgrading the multi - scenario adaptation ability, accelerate product mass production and delivery, and establish a large - scale supply chain system. Centering on fields such as intelligent robots, smart healthcare, and automotive electronics, it will further expand the domestic and international markets and promote the application of flexible electronic skin technology in more end - user scenarios.