Soft Tactile Sensors Having Two Channels With Different Slopes for Contact Position and Pressure Estimation

Tactile information is usually important for object manipulation and grasping. Typically, soft hands and tactile sensors can deform passively and contribute to stable grasping. In particular, soft tactile sensors that use conductive materials as sensor elements can acquire contact information, including the contact position and pressure; however, this tactile information cannot be classified. This study attempts to classify tactile information based on conductive material arrangements. To this end, we develop a soft tactile sensor composed of a silicone rubber body with two channels filled with a conductive material. The two channels are arranged so that they are parallel from the top view and angled with different slopes from the side view. Our experimental data reveal that the contact position parallel to the channels can be determined based on the resistance changes in the two channels, whereas the pressure can be obtained through a model based on the estimated value of the contact position.