1 ms Soft Areal Tactile Giving Robots Soft Response

Abstract

Human-interactive robots such as those used for nursing should be covered with soft areal tactile sensors for safety and dexterous manipulation. We are developing a human-interactive robot named RI-MAN that is covered with soft areal tactile sensors. The sensors used so far had a sampling period of 15 ms, which is insufficient for smooth sensor feedback response. Here we report our new tactile sensors with 1 ms sampling and improved sensitivity, as well as its experimental results.