Tactile sensor structure based on piezoelectric material for detecting surface morphology

Abstract

Because people have different criteria with regard to psychological feelings, there are still numerous issues as to which components are the informative physical parameters for perception. However, needless to say, the ability to sense surface information is the most informative type of perception among various physical parameters to impart these psychological feelings onto an artificial electro-mechanical system. Unfortunately, surface topography detection based on single pressure sensor and a feedback loop used generally for shape recognition in the design of robots are not enough to form the psychological feeling since the results often have low spatial resolution limits. Moreover, these methods require complex algorithms and programming to analyze the data concerning surface topography from robotic fingers. Here, a piezoelectric type of array sensor structure is demonstrated with a sliding method to perceive surface information such as shape and topography as precisely as that of a human. The suggested array sensor design with the excellent dynamic response of the piezoelectric material resulted in higher spatial resolution detection than the resolutions of sensor systems and detected the sliding speed, an essential parameter when attempting to perceive surface topography from electrical signals, as well.