FEM simulation and experimental analysis of a thermal tactile slip device

This paper proposes a new thermal tactile slip device to detect the slip direction. The thermal changes caused by the relative sliding of two objects with different temperature are studied, and the ANSYS finite element method is used to simulate the thermal phenomenon. The device mainly consists of a thermostatic control circuit, a heat conduction layer, a heating layer and a thermal sensor array, as well as a temperature measurement circuit. And the thermal sensor array is especially designed to measure the temperature responses on the contact surface. Tests are performed by sliding the sensing device unidirectionally on a smooth flat iron. The results show that slip direction can be effectively discriminated by this proposed device. The performance of the device can be further improved by using more thermal sensor arrays to realize the omnidirectional detection.