Multifunctional smart tactile-image sensor with integrated arrays of strain and temperature sensors on single air-pressurized silicon diaphragm

In this paper, a multifunctional smart tactile-image sensor which can detect distribution of plural physical values like a human´s fingertip is presented. An air-pressurized single silicon membrane is used as soft mechanical structure, and sensor arrays of strain and temperature sensors are integrated on it. Distributions of contact-force, vibration, and object temperature can be detected with piezoresistor and temperature sensor in each pixel. Array driver and output circuit are monolithically integrated around the sensing diaphragm. The fabricated device showed vibration detection ability with about 2 kHz bandwidth. Also, contact-force distribution was obtained with its temperature distribution at the same time. This technology is very promising to realize high performance tactile-image sensor like sensitive human fingertips.