A modular and low-cost artificial skin for robotic applications

• Published in: 2012 4th IEEE RAS & EMBS International Conference on Biomedical Robotics and Biomechatronics (BioRob) pp. 961 - 966
• Main Authors: Cirillo, Andrea, Cirillo, Pasquale, Pirozzi, Salvatore
• Format: Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: IEEE 01-06-2012
• Subjects: Microcontrollers; Prototypes; Robot sensing systems; Skin; Voltage measurement
• ISBN: 1457711990; 9781457711992
• ISSN: 2155-1774; 2155-1782
• DOI: 10.1109/BioRob.2012.6290685

In this paper a novel modular artificial skin is presented. The skin is organized in a chain of optoelectronic sensor arrays that communicate with serial interconnections. The proposed solution is highly modular and scalable since each module can be removed and/or inserted in the chain without introducing any changing in the architecture of the skin or in the acquisition system. A sensor element is constituted by an emitter/receiver couple of optoelectronic devices covered by a silicone layer. An external force applied to the deformable layer is transduced into a vertical displacement measured by the optoelectronic couple. A skin module consists of n sensing elements and m modules can be interconnected in order to obtain a complete skin with n×m sensing elements. The use of inexpensive and off-the-shelf components allows to change the density of the sensing elements as needed, maintaining a low cost.