Development of whole body multisensory soft flesh with vibrotactile and deep pressure sense for humanoid close interaction

In this paper, a ldquofleshrdquo of a humanoid robot with multisensory superficial sense is described. In order for a robot to behave in contact with an environment and people, it is necessary to have rich superficial sense. We have developed a humanoid robot with thick soft cover s with three-axis force/torque sensors inside the covers. The thick cover configuration enables holding multiple kinds of sensors, which configuration is supposed to be useful for rich tactile sensing. In order to investigate the capability of this superficial sensor configuration, additional sensors were examined and implemented to investigate possible and effective multisensory soft covers.