Abstract
To understand the principles of human hand dexterity, investigation of dynamic contact control by the hand is essential. This paper proposes a novel high-density tactile sensing glove lined with sensor sheets, which were flexible printed circuit boards embedded with 1-[mm]-sized pressure sensitive elements at 1,052 points per hand. The sensor sheets were tree-shaped, especially designed to accommodate deformations of the skin in order to minimize interference of the wearer's natural finger movements. The design also permitted seamless coverage and allowed the tactile sensor elements to be distributed at a high density over the entire inner surface of the hand. In our experiment, we found that our tactile sensor sheets reduced interference of joint movements by one-third compared to existing tactile sensors. Moreover, we verified that our glove makes qualitatively consistent measurements of pressure distributions over the surface of hand for each of everyday objects handled by the wearer despite large deformations in the skin.
