A piezoelectric tactile sensor with three sensing elements for robotic, endoscopic and prosthetic applications

This paper reports on a prototype tactile sensing system with only three sensing elements. The magnitude and position of the applied force is obtained by utilising triangulation approach combined with membrane stress. Some information about the shape of the contacted object is obtained. The polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) sensor is designed to overcome the problems of cross talk between sensing elements and to reduce the complexity associated with some PVDF tactile sensors arranged in matrix form. A theoretical analysis of the sensor is made and compared with experimental results. The limitation of the sensor is also reported. The sensor in miniaturised form can also be integrated into an endoscopic grasper and a prosthetic finger. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.