Department of Chemical Engineering, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Koç University, Sariyer, Istanbul, 34450, Turkey.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2020 May 26;117(21):11314-11320. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1909532117. Epub 2020 May 8.
Compliance sensation is a unique feature of the human skin that electronic devices could not mimic via compact and thin form-factor devices. Due to the complex nature of the sensing mechanism, up to now, only high-precision or bulky handheld devices have been used to measure compliance of materials. This also prevents the development of electronic skin that is fully capable of mimicking human skin. Here, we developed a thin sensor that consists of a strain sensor coupled to a pressure sensor and is capable of identifying compliance of touched materials. The sensor can be easily integrated into robotic systems due to its small form factor. Results showed that the sensor is capable of classifying compliance of materials with high sensitivity allowing materials with various compliance to be identified. We integrated the sensor to a robotic finger to demonstrate the capability of the sensor for robotics. Further, the arrayed sensor configuration allows a compliance mapping which can enable humanlike sensations to robotic systems when grasping objects composed of multiple materials of varying compliance. These highly tunable sensors enable robotic systems to handle more advanced and complicated tasks such as classifying touched materials.
顺应性感知是人类皮肤的独特特征，电子设备无法通过紧凑和轻薄的外形来模拟。由于感知机制的复杂性，到目前为止，只有高精度或大型手持式设备被用于测量材料的顺应性。这也阻碍了能够完全模拟人类皮肤的电子皮肤的发展。在这里，我们开发了一种由应变传感器与压力传感器耦合而成的薄型传感器，能够识别被触材料的顺应性。由于其体积小，该传感器可以很容易地集成到机器人系统中。结果表明，该传感器能够以高灵敏度对材料的顺应性进行分类，从而能够识别具有不同顺应性的材料。我们将传感器集成到机器手指上来演示传感器对机器人的功能。此外，传感器的阵列配置允许进行顺应性映射，当机器人抓取由不同顺应性的多种材料组成的物体时，这种映射可以为机器人系统提供类似人类的感觉。这些高度可调谐的传感器使机器人系统能够处理更高级和复杂的任务，例如分类被触材料。
