Flexible Tactile Sensor Sheet with Liquid Filter for Shear Force Detection

Abstract

We propose a tactile sensor with standing cantilevers embedded in viscous liquid. The viscous liquid was covered with an elastic body. Since the micro cantilevers were kept free in the liquid, they can detect large shear forces without damaging. When shear forces were applied to the sensor surface, they deform the elastic body and the viscous liquid. Since the standing cantilevers follow deformations of viscous liquid, shear forces can be detected with resistance changes of the cantilevers. If the shear force was kept constant, the cantilevers in liquid return to their initial posture. From this mechanism, the proposed sensor can detect the change of shear forces without damaging. Since the standing cantilever in single liquid filter detect the force applied to its surface. It becomes difficult to detect the contact position with the proposed sensor. Therefore, we arranged channel in the liquid filter to control the liquid flow. By arranging standing cantilevers into the channel, the cantilever's resistance changes with the distance from the contact position. In this paper, we measured the relationship between the contact position and the resistance changes of the cantilevers arranged in channel.