Development of fingertip tactile sensing chips for humanoid robots

Dahiya, R. S. , Metta, G. and Valle, M. (2009) Development of fingertip tactile sensing chips for humanoid robots. In: IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics, 2009. ICM 2009, Malaga, Spain, 14-17 Apr 2009, pp. 1-6. (doi: 10.1109/ICMECH.2009.4957166)

Abstract

This paper presents the development of tactile sensing chips, for the fingertips of humanoid robots. In the first phase of development, piezoelectric polymer-MEA (microelectrode array) based test chips have been realized. Each chip comprises of 32 microelectrodes, epoxy-adhered with a thin piezoelectric polymer (PVDF-TrFE) film. The diameter of each microelectrode or dasiataxelpsila (tactile element) is 500 mum and the center to center distance between taxels is 1 mm. The tactile sensing chips have been experimentally evaluated over a wide range (0.02 - 4N or ~ 2 gmf- 400 gmf) of dynamic normal forces and frequencies (2 Hz - 5 KHz) by applying variable force with constant frequency in the first case and constant force with variable frequency in latter. The cross-talk, among adjacent taxels on the chips, is found to be approximately 20%. Finally, the ability of the chips to identify object material on the basis of their hardness is also demonstrated.

• Item Type: Conference Proceedings
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Dahiya, Professor Ravinder
• Authors: Dahiya, R. S., Metta, G., and Valle, M.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Engineering > Electronics and Nanoscale Engineering