A thermal slip sensor for biorobotic applications

This paper presents the design of a novel sensor for slip detection. It consists of an easily fabricated miniaturized thermal probe that senses the additional convective heat transfer associated with the occurrence of mechanical slip. The fabrication procedures and the operating principle for the device are described in detail. A simple experimental setup was used to test the effectiveness of the proposed device. Tests were performed with varying velocities on four materials of differing thermal properties and surface roughnesses. The results show that slip can be effectively detected by the proposed sensor with a response times which can be as low as 6.3 ms. The performance of the device can be further improved when used in conjunction with a separate pressure sensor and by using more accurate methods of electrical resistance measurement.