Computational model for tactile sensing system with wrinkle's morphological change

摘要

We previously developed Wrin'Tac, a tactile sensing system that can select sensing modalities by changing its morphology. In this paper, we present a computational model to estimate a wrinkle's morphology and predict the output of embedded sensing elements in both static indentation and sliding action cases. We evaluated the wrinkle shape and the posture of the sensing element by calculating its height. The wrinkle's mechanical change is assessed by ascertaining its stiffness under vertical indentation by a spherical indenter. The output voltages of the sensor under static indentation are calculated by the proposed model, and the experimental values have error less than 10, which validates the accuracy of our proposed model. For dynamic sliding action, this proposed model clarified the capability of wrinkle morphology in an evaluation of such sliding action's characteristics as the sliding direction and velocity. We also identified the role of the wrinkle's morphology in the sensor's sensitivity under different conditions of dynamic sliding motion, implying that this sensing system may select suitable sensitivity for specific sensation tasks. We expect this work to pave the way for assessing the role of morphological changes to tactile sensation and developing soft active tactile sensing systems.