A Flexible Tactile Sensor with Irregular Planar Shape Based on Uniform Electric Field

Abstract

Tactility is an essential perception for intelligent equipment to acquire external information. It can improve safety and performance during human-machine interactions. Based on the uniqueness theorem of the electrostatic field, a novel flexible film tactile sensor that can detect contact position and be made into any plane shape is proposed in this paper. The tactile sensor included an indium tin oxide (ITO) film, which was uniformly coated on the polyethylene terephthalate (PET) substrate. A specially designed strong conductive line was arranged along the edge of the flexible ITO film, which has weak conductivity. A bias excitation was applied to both ends of the strong conductive line. Through the control of the shape of the strong conductive line, a uniform electric field can be constructed in the whole weak conductive plane. According to the linear relationship between position and potential in the uniform electric field, the coordinate of the contact position can be determined by obtaining the potential of the contact point in the weak conducting plane. The sensor uses a three-layer structure, including an upper conductive layer, an intermediate isolation layer, and a lower conductive layer. A tactile sensor sample was fabricated. The experiment results showed that the principle of the tactile sensor used for the contact position detection is feasible and has certain precision of position detection. The sensor has good flexibility, and can be made into any plane shape, and has only four wires. It is capable of covering large areas of robot arms, and provides safety solutions for most robots.