Wrinkled Soft Sensor With Variable Afferent Morphology

There is an increasing interest in morphological computation due to its advantages in exploring underlying mechanism of soft robotics, especially in tactile sensing. This letter introduces the idea of variable afferent network morphology (VANmorph) for describing the phenomenon that morphology change of soft sensor varies the sensing capability. The characteristics of VANmorph are verified and evaluated based on a novel prototype of sensorized soft body inspired by water-induced wrinkle morphology of human fingers. Preliminary results reveal the advantages of such design in introducing multiple sensitivities to both normal indention and tangential sliding stimuli, and demonstrate potentials in future development of active tactile sensing system.