Tactile Recognition of Shape and Texture on the Same Substrate

Abstract

Due to the difficulties in designing sensor arrays with a wide detection range, high sensitivity, and the sensing ability to convert tangential force into normal force on the same substrate, the integration of shape and texture recognitions in one electronic skin (e‐skin) has not been realized so far. Herein, an e‐skin tactile‐sensing system is presented, based on resistive pressure‐sensing units (serving as Meissner corpuscles) unevenly distributed on a bionic hand‐shaped polyimide substrate, which can realize shape and texture recognitions concurrently. A multilayer microporous structure with different pores is designed and introduced into the sensor, which enables each sensing unit ultrahigh sensitivity and a wide detection range. Meanwhile, a customized micro‐pyramid array is developed and assembled to the sensor array, which realizes the transformation from tangential force to normal force. With the help of artificial intelligence technology, the recognition accuracy reaches 100% for 8 different shapes, and 99.7% for 10 different textures, respectively. The proposed design strategy enables compatible fabrication, simple signal processing, and convenient extension of bionic free‐shaped e‐skin, which paves a promising way for the popularization of e‐skin in large‐scale intelligent wearable fields.

Keywords

• artificial intelligence
• electronic skin (e-skin)
• shape and texture recognition
• tactile-sensing systems