Resistive tactile sensor matrices using inter-electrode sampling

Abstract

Tactile sensors can be used in many applications from object recognition in industrial grippers and medical devices to human-robot-interaction in service robotics. Among the different working principles of tactile sensors, the resistive is of particular interest. Those sensors are constructed in a simple way, are insensitive to shock and overdrive and can be designed with both, a high spatial resolution and a large sensing area. Conventional resistive tactile sensors are based on two electrode layers, located on opposed sides of a conductive polymer. Since this design has disadvantages affecting lifetime, we use a onesided contacting by the use of a regular electrode matrix. However, this increases the signal processing circuit's complexity. This paper introduces a novel kind of resistive tactile sensor matrix with an inter-electrode sampling technique for high speed measurements at an reduced number of electrodes and therefore a reduced complexity. The design of such sensor matrices is described and a method for comparing their performance based on the matrix efficiency is introduced. In addition, a working prototype was build and successfully tested.