A tactile sensor for the determination of object positions

A tactile sensor has been designed and fabricated for fast and accurate determination of object positions. The sensor is a cantilever beam on which a piezoelectric heterogeneous bimorph and a piezoelectric strain sensor are integrated. Deflection measurements of the bimorph have shown that the bender has a square dependence on the amplitude of the voltage. Deflections as large as 1166 μm at -6 V were registered for a 2980-μm-long bimorph. The apparent d₃₁ under a bias of 4 V was 108×10^-12 m/V. The large magnitude of deflection was the result of enhanced piezoelectric effect under strong static field