Electronic hardware design of a low cost tactile sensor device for physical Human-Robot Interactions

Ganna Pugach (1) , Viacheslav Khomenko (1, 2) , Artem Melnyk (1, 3) , Alexandre Pitti (3) , Patrick Henaff (4) , Philippe Gaussier (3)

1 DONTU - National Technical University of Donetsk
2 LISV - Laboratoire d'Ingénierie des Systèmes de Versailles
3 ETIS - UMR 8051 - Equipes Traitement de l'Information et Systèmes
4 CORTEX - Neuromimetic intelligence

We propose in this paper a low-cost method of Electrical Impedance Tomography (EIT) data acquisition from soft conductive fabric for the design of robots artificial skin. We use a simple multiplexer/demultiplexer circuit for retrieving the resistance field from the pair-wised electrical current injected and the output voltage measured from the conductive fabric. A microcontroller controls the current injection and voltage output patterns and the analog-to-numeric conversion from the tactile material. After explaining the EIT method, we present the electronics corresponding to the data acquisition and we analyze the material property. Results show that we can acquire and localize in real time spatial patterns of the tactile contact.

Mots clés: tactile sensors; artificial skin; EIDORS; Electrical Impedance Tomography

Domaines: Robotique [cs.RO]

Ganna Pugach, Viacheslav Khomenko, Artem Melnyk, Alexandre Pitti, Patrick Henaff, et al.. Electronic hardware design of a low cost tactile sensor device for physical Human-Robot Interactions. ELNANO 2013 - 33rd IEEE International Scientific Conference Electronics and Nanotechnology, Apr 2013, Kiev, Ukraine. pp.5, ⟨10.1109/ELNANO.2013.6552033⟩. ⟨hal-00784892⟩