Robotic tactile sensor array fabricated from a piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride film

Author

Reston, Rocky R. ; Kolesar, Edward S.

Author_Institution

Dept. of Electr. & Comput. Eng., US Air Force Inst. of Technol., Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, USA

fYear

1990

fDate

21-25 May 1990

Firstpage

1139

Abstract

A robotic tactile sensor comprised of 25 discrete sensor electrodes arranged in a 5×5 grid was designed and fabricated from a piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride (PVDF) film coupled to an integrated circuit (IC). Each of the 25 sensing electrodes in the IC grid were connected to metal-oxide-semiconductor field effect transistor (MOSFET) amplifiers which provided sufficient gain to generate usable response signal levels. Sensors fabricated from varying thicknesses of PVDF film are evaluated. The sensor based on the 25-μm-thick PVDF film was considered to be the optimal sensor configuration, based on its bias-time performance and its linear response over the loading range tested (0/8 to 76.0 grams). There was no detectable coupling between the nearest-neighbor sensing elements in any of the sensor configurations. As a demonstration, the optimal sensor configuration is used to recognize a toroidal-shaped load

Keywords

electric sensing devices; piezoelectric transducers; polymer films; robots; tactile sensors; 25 micron; MOSFET; PVDF film; discrete sensor electrodes; integrated circuit; linear response; optimal sensor; optimal sensor configuration; piezoelectric polyvinylidene fluoride film; robotic tactile sensor; sensor array; toroidal-shaped load; Coupling circuits; Electrodes; FET integrated circuits; MOSFET circuits; Mesh generation; Piezoelectric films; Robot sensing systems; Sensor arrays; Signal generators; Tactile sensors;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Aerospace and Electronics Conference, 1990. NAECON 1990., Proceedings of the IEEE 1990 National

Conference_Location

Dayton, OH

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NAECON.1990.112928

Filename

112928