Sensitivity enhancement of a micro-scale biomimetic tactile sensor with epidermal ridges

A microscale biomimetic tactile sensor with epidermal ridges is proposed to enhance the sensitivity of force detection. Guided by the principles of the human tactile perception mechanism, specifically the epidermal ridges, artificial epidermal ridges made of polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) were designed and placed on micro-fabricated metal strain gauge arrays. A polyimide layer was fabricated to facilitate attachment between the metal and PDMS, so that patterned copper could be deposited on the polyimide to function as the strain gauges. The aspect ratio of the artificial epidermal ridges was optimized using material stability calculations and finite element method (FEM) simulations, and the optimal structure obtained was 400 µm in width and 110 µm in height. Experiments verified the effectiveness of enhancing the sensitivity of such a tactile sensor with the artificial epidermal ridges, in that the outputs of the strain gauges were 1.8 times more sensitive than those of a tactile sensor without ridges. The proposed artificial epidermal ridges are readily applicable to any developed tactile sensors for performance enhancement.

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