Hybrid resistive tactile sensing

This paper describes a novel design of a robot tactile sensor, called hybrid tactile sensor, based on analog resistive technology. The design employs a set of parallel analog resistive sensing strips, rather than a two-dimensional (2-D) grid of sensing elements, to sample the sensor surface. It is therefore analog in one dimension and discrete in the other. As a result, the number of samples that need to be obtained is significantly reduced, as is the number of connectors in the sensor circuitry. In addition, the sensor design scales easily to a large sensing surface area, and offers flexibility in sensor geometry. However, only the contact location and shape can be sensed, but not the contact force. This paper provides the theoretical model of the sensor, and presents simulation and experimental results.