A soft touch: Compliant Tactile Sensors for Sensitive Manipulation

We present the design, analysis and construction of a biologicallyinspired tactile sensor. The sensor can measure normal and lateralforces, conform to the surfaces with which it comes in contact andincrease the friction of the surface for a good grasp.The sensor is built using a simple process and the applied forcesare read using standard electronics. These features make thesensors ideal for mass production.We are motivated to build tactile sensors that are useful forrobotic manipulation given that the current ones do not have thefeatures that we consider necessary. The sensors presented in thispaper have been designed to deal with these issues. They have beendesigned and implemented in the fingers of the humanoid robotObrero.