Sensing capabilities of linear elastic cylindrical fingers

A linear elastic plane strain model for a cylindrical finger with a solid core and elastic surface is developed. This model is used to determine the subsurface strain impulse responses as well as pressure distributions in the contact region for indentation of the cylinder by rigid objects with friction. Singular value decomposition is used to find a reduced basis in which to analyze the shape-from-strain inversion problem. This decomposition shows that sensor depth must be small to achieve good shape sensing. However, if only contact location and applied force magnitude and direction are required, deep sensors can quickly and easily provide this information