Development of a resistive compact slip sensor using dielectric elastomer

Tactile sensor for detecting slip is essential to safely grasp an object for a robot hand with a complicated structure and various functions. In this paper, sensors with three patterns in different forms are designed to sense slip moment through a resistance change. The slip sensors of novel design have flexible and stretchable to be used on the robot hand surface. For realizing these characteristics, acrylonitrile-butadiene rubber (NBR) is used as a substrate of the sensor. Graphene material is employed because of suitability for flexible substrate as an electrode. An imprint process to produce a micro-unit structure to sensor surface is newly developed. As a result, sensors have an extremely small structure that can operate suggested working principle perfectly. Parameters of the micro structure is confirmed by FEM simulation earlier. Experiments for performance of the developed sensors are conducted. Through results of experiments, the pattern that has the best performance to know slip moment was checked.