RECOGNITION OF CONTACT STATE BY USING NEURAL NETWORK FOR MICROMACHINED ARRAY TYPE TACTILE SENSOR

摘要

In this paper, a force sensing element having a pillar and a diaphragm is proposed and thereafter fabricated by micromachining. Piezo resistors are fabricated on a silicon diaphragm for detecting distortions caused by a force input to a pillar on the diaphragm. Since a practical arrayed sensor consisting of many of this element is still under development, the output of an assumed arrayed type tactile sensor is simulated by FEM (finite element method). Using simulated data, the possibility of tactile pattern recognition using a neural network (NN) is investigated. The learning method of NN, the number of units of the input layer and the hidden layer, as well as the number of training data are investigated for realizing high probability of recognition. The 14 subjects having different shape and size are recognized. This recognition succeeded even if the contact position and the rotation angle of these objects are changed.