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Soft Humanoid Finger with Magnetic Tactile Perception

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Intelligent Robotics and Applications (ICIRA 2023)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 14271))

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Abstract

The human skin is equipped with various receptors that sense external stimuli and provide tactile information to the body. Similarly, robots require sensors to perceive their environment and interact with it. Inspired by the bionics of human skin, we have developed a magnetic haptic tactile sensor that mimics the softness of the human finger skin. Our magnetic finger abdomen deforms when it comes in contact with an object, causing a change in magnetic flux density. The three-dimensional Hall sensor detects this change in magnetic field signal, allowing us to accurately measure the normal force applied to the sensor. There is a linear relationship between the z-axis magnetic field signal and the magnitude of the normal force (R\(^{2}\)  > 0.988). Our single bionic magnetic finger abdomen sensor has a Root Mean Squared Error of only 0.18N for the detection range of 0–10N, and force measurement accuracy of up to 95.5%. Our soft sensory skin is simple to manufacture, interchangeable, and customizable to meet the needs of haptic soft surfaces. Experimental results show that the sensor can accurately predict the normal force and the soft humanoid finger can stabilize the envelope grasp. This study provides a new idea for the design of magneto-tactile sensors, which is of great significance for the study of dexterous hand-grasping operations.

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 62173197, U22B2042), Tsinghua University Initiative Scientific Research Program with 2022Z11QYJ002 and the Anhui Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant no. 2108085MF224).

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Funding

CIE-Tencent Robotics X Rhino-Bird Focused Research Program under Grant 2022-01.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Mechanical Engineering, Anhui University of Technology, Ma’anshan, China

    Xingyu Ding & Jianhua Shan

  2. School of Engineering and Technology, China University of Geoscience, Beijing, China

    Ziwei Xia

  3. Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Fuchun Sun & Bin Fang

Authors
  1. Xingyu Ding
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  2. Jianhua Shan
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  3. Ziwei Xia
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  4. Fuchun Sun
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  5. Bin Fang
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Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jianhua Shan or Bin Fang .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Huayong Yang

  2. Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Honghai Liu

  3. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Jun Zou

  4. Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

    Zhouping Yin

  5. Shenyang Institute of Automation, Shenyang, Liaoning, China

    Lianqing Liu

  6. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Geng Yang

  7. Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China

    Xiaoping Ouyang

  8. Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen, China

    Zhiyong Wang

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© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

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Ding, X., Shan, J., Xia, Z., Sun, F., Fang, B. (2023). Soft Humanoid Finger with Magnetic Tactile Perception. In: Yang, H., et al. Intelligent Robotics and Applications. ICIRA 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 14271. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6495-6_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-99-6495-6_5

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  • Online ISBN: 978-981-99-6495-6

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