Human‐Like Electronic Skin‐Integrated Soft Robotic Hand

TLDR

Human-interactive soft robotics hold promise for home, industrial, and IoT applications. The study aims to integrate multiple soft sensors into a pneumatic soft robotic hand to emulate human skin while preserving flexibility. The authors embed a 2×2 pixel tactile force sensor array into a pneumatic balloon-based soft hand, using time-delay measurements of sensor outputs to provide real-time feedback that prevents object dropping. The prototype successfully demonstrates pneumatic actuation and simultaneous multi-sensor detection, validating the concept.

Abstract

Human‐interactive soft robotic technologies have potential in numerous applications such as automatic home‐use robots, industrial systems, and Internet of Things (IoT) concepts. One approach to improve soft robotics is to integrate multiple soft sensors to monitor diverse information simultaneously, similar to human skin, without sacrificing mechanical flexibility and softness. This study reports multiple sensor integration, called an electronic skin (e‐skin), embedded in a pneumatic balloon‐based soft robotic hand. The sensors have good sensitivity to different stimuli but are insensitive to bending of the structure. By integrating multiple tactile force sensors (2 × 2 pixels), sliding or slipping movements of an object from a soft robotic hand can be monitored by measuring the time delay of tactile forces in the sensors as well as the tactile force generated by the pneumatic robot and external stimulus such as human contact. This information prevents the robotic hand from dropping an object by providing real‐time feedback, which is used to determine the tactile force. In addition to the fundamental characteristics, demonstration of pneumatic actuation and multiple sensing detections are successfully addressed as the first proof‐of‐concept.