A Tactile Element Based on Nonlinear Elasticity to Sense Contact Area

摘要

In this paper, we propose a new tactile sensor element to realize robot skins. The sensor element has a large sensing area (several square centimeters) and acquires not only contact force but also contact area. By arraying the sensor elements, we can cover a large area with a small amount of the sensor elements, and collect rich tactile information. The structure of the sensor element is very simple; two layers of isolators (urethane foam) sandwiched by three pieces of stretchable conductive sheets (conductive fabric). The structure enables us to obtain the contact force and the contact area from the capacitances between the conductive pieces. We also propose the method to connect the elements to compose the robot skin including no long wires. CMOS LSI sensor/communication chips are arranged at the boundary of the sensor elements, and the chips measure the capacitances between the conductive layers and send signals through the identical conductive layers.