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Review
. 2017 Nov 17;17(11):2653.
doi: 10.3390/s17112653.

Novel Tactile Sensor Technology and Smart Tactile Sensing Systems: A Review

Liang Zou  1 , Chang Ge  2 , Z Jane Wang  3 , Edmond Cretu  4 , Xiaoou Li  5
Affiliations
Review

Novel Tactile Sensor Technology and Smart Tactile Sensing Systems: A Review

Liang Zou et al. Sensors (Basel). .

Abstract

During the last decades, smart tactile sensing systems based on different sensing techniques have been developed due to their high potential in industry and biomedical engineering. However, smart tactile sensing technologies and systems are still in their infancy, as many technological and system issues remain unresolved and require strong interdisciplinary efforts to address them. This paper provides an overview of smart tactile sensing systems, with a focus on signal processing technologies used to interpret the measured information from tactile sensors and/or sensors for other sensory modalities. The tactile sensing transduction and principles, fabrication and structures are also discussed with their merits and demerits. Finally, the challenges that tactile sensing technology needs to overcome are highlighted.

Keywords: machine learning; microfabrication; sensor fusion; smart tactile sensing.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Conventional tactile sensor fabrication technologies: (a) Micromachining, (b) Molding; and (c) (Reprinted with permission [33]. Copyright © 2014, Springer Berlin Heidelberg) and (d) (Reprinted with permission [24]. Copyright 2006, IEEE) examples of micromachined and modeled tactile sensing structures.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Two examples of tactile sensing systems for biomedical engineering: (a) the modular prosthetic limb; and (b) the SureTouch sensor for breast exam [120,121] (Reprinted with permission. Copyright 2015 IEEE).
Figure 3
Figure 3
The illustrative hierarchical transmission of tactile signals in: (a) human skin; and (b) smart tactile sensing system.
Figure 4
Figure 4
An illustrative study in [149] showing the basic concept for artificial skin and a DNN architecture for reliable sensing: (a) a schematic elucidating the comparison between the human skin and the artificial skin; and (b) the DNN architecture for tactile sensing. (Reprinted with permission from the authors [149] under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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