Glove Type of Wearable Tactile Sensor Produced by Artificial Hollow Fiber

We previously proposed an artificial hollow fiber, as a new MEMS material, for the development of a fabric tactile sensor. The artificial hollow fiber is fabricated by uniformly laminating metal and insulation layers onto the surface of an elastic hollow fiber. The fabric tactile sensor is made by weaving the modified hollow fibers into a cloth. The sensor can detect the contact force by measuring changes in capacitance at the points where the warp and weft fibers intersect, and can detect 2D contact force distribution by sequentially scanning the capacitance changes at all intersecting points. We investigated the dependence of sensor output on normal load and tension. The normal load and tension were independently applied to the fiber elements in order to determine the basic characteristics of the fabric sensor. We also developed two different glove-type wearable tactile sensors. One was made by patching the sensor onto an existing glove, and the other was made by directly weaving the hollow fibers into the yarn of the glove. In experiments with the patched sensor, we confirmed that it was able to detect contact force.