Development of tactile sensor using magnetic elements

We propose a magnetic type tactile sensor that can measure a three-axis displacement and a three-axis force, and detect slips. Its simple structure comprises two layers, an elastic layer, and a substrate layer. The elastic layer is made of an elastic material and houses a cylindrical permanent magnet inside. The substrate layer is a glass epoxy board and has four giant magneto resistance (GMR) elements and four inductors. Features of this sensor are a wiring reduction, simple structure, and low cost. In this paper, we describe a structure of the sensor. Layouts of the sensor are designed using a finite elemental method. We show three prototypes with different sizes and experimental results by them, and demonstrate the proposed sensor´s effectiveness.