Design and Fabrication of Flexible Composite Tactile Sensors for Robotic Soft Grippers

The objects gripped by the robot's soft gripper often exhibit irregular surfaces and complex geometries and are prone to damage upon impact. Flexible tactile sensors require high sensitivity, a broad linear range, excellent flexibility, and minimal latency to meet these demanding characteristics. Thus, this article presents the design and fabrication of a high-performance flexible tactile sensor specifically for detecting the grasping actions of a robot's soft gripper. The sensor is constructed made of MXene/carbon nanotubes (CNT) consisting material. The sensors were initially fabricated using a hybrid method, followed by the characterization of their surface morphology and structure. The characterization results revealed that the composite of MXene and CNT enhances the mechanical and electrical properties of the film by creating conductive pathways and interfacial effects. The sensor exhibits a notable linear sensitivity of 0.32 kPa(-1), a rapid response time of 50 ms, and excellent cycling stability exceeding 20000 cycles. Subsequently, the flexible tactile sensor was effectively integrated into the robot's soft gripper, and its capacity to detect the tactile sensation and gripping action on various objects was experimentally validated. Overall, this research introduces a flexible tactile sensor using MXene/CNT materials and a polymerization-filling technique, significantly improving robotic soft gripper grasping detection.