Design and Theoretic Analysis of 3D Tactile Sensor

This paper presents capacitive tactile sensor that can detect normal and shear forces. This tactile sensor consists of index plate, sensing plate, and elastic dielectric layer. The calculated sensing character is based on the changes of space between two horizontal plate. Larger overlap areas and narrow space between top and bottom plate guarantees higher sensitivity. Tactile sense information can be calculated from the changes of phase of output signal. The symmetric arrangement of sensing plates makes the manufacturing process easier and guarantees the stability of the structure. In this paper, the sensor structure is designed, the mechanism of the Proposed sensor is theoretically explained, and the simulated result is presented.