Development of touch sensor with optical positional sensor

Recently, the news related to robots is often taken up. The research on the mechanism of the robot and its hand finds constant directionality by the average. However, a good method for controlling them is not proposed. If a robot with the complete independence is required for production, it is necessary to incorporate a variety of sense organs into them such as a visual system to recognize the environment, auditory one to react to the voice and sense of touch to detect contact with an object. It is, however, difficult to equip a robot with these five feelings like a human. Then, it is preferable to apply a necessary sensor responding to the system requirements. Thus, it is very important to consider which types of sensors should be applied to the robot. The accuracy of the sensor is very important, but at the same time the cost and size must be regarded to make the robot use and control them. A new touch sensor is introduced in this paper which is most important for the robot to grasp an object and manipulate it. The effectiveness of the sensor is shown. We have succeeded in reducing more than 90% of traditional sensors.