Flexible tactile sensor with 2D structure based on Fiber Bragg grating

A distributed flexible tactile sensor based on 2D fiber Bragg grating (FBG) sensing is designed and produced in this study to solve the error of the single FBG flexible tactile sensor in identifying any two pressure positions symmetrical to the z-axis with grating center as the origin. This study also aims to obtain accurate pressure information on the surface of the electronic skin. A new type of tactile sensing application scheme composed of multiple FBG sensing elements with high spatial resolution is determined by analyzing the characteristics of FBG flexible sensing and by using ANSYS software for dynamic simulation. Simulation and experimental results show that the flexible tactile sensor proposed in this study has high linearity and sensitivity. In addition, the spatial resolution of the proposed sensor is increased by 8 times compared with that of a single FBG sensor with the same length. Research results can be applied to the tactile detection of the flexible electronic skin for robots. This application, which provides a feasible solution to develop and promote flexible electronic skin, has a wide range of prospects.