Optoelectronic-Based Flexible Contact Sensor for Prosthetic Hand Application

This paper presents a flexible contact sensor for application on robotic fingers of prosthetic hand. The sensor is intended to provide contact sensing functionality when the finger is interacting with the environment. The sensor is based on optoelectronic infrared components mounted on a flexible substrate and connected by means of elastic electrical wires. The adopted configuration allows high sensitivities and fast responses. An important feature of the sensor is that the activation thresholds for contact sensing can be simply and precisely tuneable.