Design of Downsized Magnetic Type Tactile Sensor(Mechanical Systems)

Abstract

We have proposed a novel magnetic type tactile sensor that can measure a three-axis force and detect slips. Its simple structure comprises two layers, an elastic layer, and a substrate layer. The elastic layer is made of an elastic material and has a cylindrical permanent magnet. The substrate layer is a glass epoxy board and has four GMR (giant magneto resistance) elements. Features of this sensor are a wiring reduction, simple structure and low cost. This sensor can be created with many variation in hardness and shape of elastic layer. In this paper, our purpose is producing downsized tactile sensor in order to realize a low cost and high-performance robot hand. Therefore, we are going to design the tactile sensor using finite elemental method for estimation of the size of the elastic layer and the arrangement of electric parts. We then verify the performance of this downsized sensor.