Contact Sensors:

Project groundwork has included development and improvement of tactile sensors compatible with our telemanipulation system. Our first concern in integrating tactile sensing with our telemanipulation system was to develop robust fingertip contact sensors.

Contact location is necessary for regulating internal grasp forces during rolling operations. Our design utilizes an array of contact switches, fabricated as part of a flexible printed circuit. The conductive traces of the flex circuit, which make up one half of each contact switch, are distributed around the circumference of the robot fingertip.

The switches work much the same way as keyboard membrane switches, except in our case thin strips of dielectric tape seperate the conductive traces of the flex circuit from a copper grounding foil. The design is simple, low profile and reconfigurable for use in concert with other tactile sensors envisioned for our system. These sensors detect a line of contact on the circumference of the fingertip,