Development of new type tactile sensor for detecting hardness and/or software of an object like the human hand

The authors have developed a novel tactile sensor for detecting, in a manner similar to that of the human hand, the hardness and/or softness of an object. This sensor is quite different from conventional tactile sensors which consist of a strain gage, conductive elastomer, and piezoelectric polymer film. The novel sensor is designed to operate with a piezoelectric element which is employed as the sensor, and shows excellent performance. This sensor can also be widely applied in the medical, robotics, and measurement fields.<<ETX>>