A three-axis high-resolution capacitive tactile imager system based on floating comb electrodes

Abstract

We present the design, fabrication and testing of a high-resolution 169-sensing cell capacitive flexible tactile imager (FTI) for normal and shear stress measurement as an auxiliary sensor for robotic grippers and gait analysis. The FTI consists of a flexible high-density array of normal stress and two-dimensional shear stress sensors fabricated using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and flexible printed circuit board (FPCB) techniques. The drive/sense lines of the FTI are realized using FPCB whereas the floating electrodes (Au) are patterned on a compressible PDMS layer spin coated on the FPCB layer. The use of unconnected floating electrodes significantly improves the reliability of traditional quad-electrode contact sensing devices by eliminating the need for patterning electrical wiring on PDMS. When placed at the heel of a boot, this FTI senses the position and motion of the line of contact with the ground. Normal stress readouts are obtained from the net capacitance of the cell and the shear-sense direction is determined by the amount of asymmetric overlap of the floating combs with respect to the bottom electrodes. The FTI is characterized using a high-speed switched-capacitor circuit with a 12-bit resolution at full frame rates of 100 Hz (∼0.8 Mb s−1) capable of resolving a displacement as low as 60 µm. The FTI and the readout circuitry contribute to a noise/interference level of 5 mV and the sensitivity of normal and shear stress for the FTI is 0.38 MPa−1 and 79.5 GPa−1 respectively.