Fabrication of Polymer-based Flexible Tactile Sensing Module with Metal Strain Gauges and Interconnecter

We present fabrication of flexible tactile sensing module with NiCr strain gauge as sensing element and interconnecter for signal treatment by polymer MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical System) technologies using polyimide materials. The tactile sensor array is composed of 16 × 16 sensing elements with 2 mm × 2 mm cell size and its overall size is 4 cm ×5 cm. Both the tactile sensor array and interconnecter are placed in the sensing module during the fabrication process. The fabricated tactile sensing module is measured continuously in the normal force range of 0~1N with tactile sensor evaluation system. The variation of resistance is relatively increased linearly in the range of 0~0.6N and saturated after 0.6N. The variation rate of resistance is approximately 3%/N in the linear range. In addition, the flexibility of the sensing module is adequate to be placed on any curved surface like cylinder because the matrix consists of polymer and metal thin film.