Design of biomimetic human-skin-like tactile flexible sensor

Abstract

Purpose The hands of intelligent robots perceive external stimuli and respond effectively according to tactile or pressure sensors. However, the traditional tactile and pressure sensors cannot perform human-skin-like intelligent properties of high sensitivity, large measurement range, multi-function and flexibility simultaneously. The purpose of this paper is to present a flexible tactile-pressure sensor based on hyper-elastics polydimethylsiloxane and plate capacitance. Design/methodology/approach With regard to this problem, this paper presents a flexible tactile-pressure sensor based on hyper-elastics PDMS and plate capacitance. The sensor has a size of 10 mm × 10 mm × 1.3 mm and is composed of four upper electrodes, one middle driving electrode and one lower electrode. The authors first analyzed the structure and the tactile-pressure sensing principle of human skin to obtain the design parameters of the sensor. Then they presented the working principle, material selection and mechanical structure design and fabrication process of the sensor. The authors also fabricated several sample devices of the sensor and carried out experiments to establish the relationship between the sensor output and the pressure. Findings The results show that the tactile part of the sensor can measure a range of 0.05-1N/mm2 micro pressure with a sensitivity of 2.93 per cent/N and a linearity of 0.03 per cent. The pressure part of the sensor can measure a range of 1-30N/mm2 pressure with a sensitivity of 0.08 per cent/N and a linearity of 0.07 per cent. Originality/value This paper analyzes the tactile and pressure sensing principles of human skin and develop an intelligent sensitive human-skin-like tactile-pressure sensor for intelligent robot perception systems. The sensor can achieve to imitate the tactile and pressure function simultaneously with a measurement resolution of 0.01 N and a spatial resolution of 2 mm.