Flexible Tactile Sensor Array Mounted on the Curved Surface: Analytical Modeling and Experimental Validation

This paper presents an analytical model to study the sensing performance of the flexible capacitive tactile sensor array when mounted on a curved surface. To predict the deformation of the sensor unit, a cylindrical coordinate is constructed for the upper Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET) and truncated pyramids dielectric layer. The displacement functions model is developed and solved by using the Ritz method. Then, this model is utilized to investigate the capacitance change of the sensor unit and the model-calculated results are compared with the experiment data. Both model calculated and experiment measured results indicate that the capacitances of the sensor array are increased by about 30% when the sensor is mounted on the curved surface with a radius of curvature of 10 mm. Due to the bending effects of the curved surface, the sensitivities of the sensor array are decreased based on the model calculation and are confirmed by experimental validation. Thus, results demonstrate that the developed analytical model can accurately predict the sensing performance of the tactile sensor array on the curved surface and could be utilized for the real applications.