The study of sensor structure to sense a surface information for intelligent tactile sensor

A study of the human sense of touch has attracted much interest for a long time. Various kinds of sensors have been studied with various technologies for the sensing of external stimuli. Tactile sensors using capacitive, piezoresistive, piezoelectric and pyroelectric mechanism have been suggested to sense pressure, vibration and temperature. Unfortunately, it is rare to find a studying results of tactile sensor related with a surface information detection in comparison with pressure and temperature sensing. The ability to sense a surface information is the important factor to distinguish surface feelings such as roughness and smoothness. In this paper, a sensor array using piezoelectricity is demonstrated with a sliding motion to sense surface information such as the pitch and width of surface features. The suggested sensor array has a high spatial resolution(500um) and detected the variable sliding speeds thanks to the excellent dynamic response of the piezoelectric material. The reconfigured surface information had high accuracy compared to actual one. The demonstrated sliding speed sensing, high spatial resolution and the pitch and width of surface features measurement capabilities allow the sensor to be utilized as an intelligent artificial tactile sensor.