Soft Tactile Sensor Detecting Air-Water Interface

Soft tactile sensors have been widely developed to improve the safety and durability thereof. We propose a soft tactile sensor using the movement of the interface between encapsulated air and water in a silicon rubber body. A force applied to the tactile sensor causes a change in position of the interface and change in measured capacitance. Moreover, the structure does not require ohmic contact between a contact part and detection part, and improves durability. The experimental results reveal that the tactile sensor was able to detect the applied force. Additionally, although the sensor output showed a linear relationship to applied force under the bending condition, the sensitivity of the output changed with the angle. The maximum sensitivity of the proposed sensor was 0.05 N
^-1
.