Mechanoreceptor Inspired Electronic Skin for Multi‐Modal Tactile Information Decoding

Abstract Multimodal force identification by electronic skin (E‐skin) provides comprehensive and precise tactile information that can enhance elaborated functions of fine tactile discrimination, robotic manipulation, and gesture recognition. However, it remains a great challenge to realize such complicated functions from a highly simplified E‐skin sensing system. Here, mimicking the multi‐mechanoreceptor synergistic effect in human skin, a simple, thin, soft, intelligent tactile sensor composed of an asymmetrically arrangement of strain sensing units array for multimodal tactile information decoding is reported. The E‐skin type tactile sensor exhibits good performance with excellent sensitivity for shear force (2.5 N–1), vertical force (0.11 kPa–1), that enables 3D force refactoring, as well as accurate recognition of sliding force for direction tracking. Another unique feature of the E‐skin type tactile sensor is the side force screen effect, that allows the tactile sensor to yield great accuracy and a gauge factor of 1492 in strain measuring. Furthermore, integration of the sensors into E‐skin array offers the capability of capturing dynamic and real‐time stress distribution on the hand in various conditions. This work provides a new route for complex force‐sensing from the simple structure and shows great potential in robotics, human‐machine interface, and virtual reality/augmented reality (VR/AR).