Design and experiments of the tactile sensor for robot hands utilizing a suspension shell

This paper describes how the intrinsic tactile sensor utilizing a cylindrical suspension shell is fabricated and experimented. Basically, the sensor is developed for multijointed fingers. Actually, the shell of diameter 30 mm is considered which is roughly 1.5 times larger than the human finger. The shell is suspended at two cross sections where three extension springs connect the shell with the finger body around the finger axis. To measure the angular and linear displacements, expressing the behavior of the suspension shell, a PSD is housed in the finger body with four light emitting sources and a pinhole. Supposing that an external force operates on the shell to make one contact, the magnitude, direction, and position of the force is determined. Experimental results are shown to verify that the sensor is useful for collecting tactile information