Active haptic sensation for monitoring skin conditions

Abstract This paper is a study on the development of an active haptic sensor for monitoring skin conditions. The base of the tactile sensor is an aluminum cylinder, around which a polyurethane rubber, a PVDF film, a protective surface layer of an acetate film and lace are stacked in sequence. The sensor is set on the rotation axis of a stepping motor, which is driven at a constant speed. The sensor is first pressed against an object, and then it slides over the definite position. The features on the data are extracted by calculating both the variance and the time delay of the appearance of a peak in the sensor output. Experimental results show that the present sensor system works well as a haptic sensor for monitoring skin conditions.