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Precision evaluation of tactile sensor fabrication using a robotic additive manufacturing platform

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Abstract

This paper presents the NeXus, a precision robotic platform with additive manufacturing capabilities that can be used to prototype strain gauge-based tactile sensors – SkinCells - on flexible substrates. An Aerosol Inkjet printer was employed to print the strain gauge structures of the SkinCell sensor. The design of this sensor combines curvilinear geometries representing both a radial shape structure and an arc shape structure, which have opposite gauge responses when the force is applied to the center of the sensor. The fabrication process of the SkinCell sensor is predicated on a parametric kinematic calibration of the NeXus to identify features on the sensor substrate and align them to the printing and metrology tools. Several strain gauge SkinCell sensor samples were printed on pre-fabricated flexible substrates using the NeXus. Results indicate a calibration precision of approximately 36 microns with 100 microns line-width features. This precision is sufficient to ensure that all printed gauges are electrically connected to the prefabricated contacts. Furthermore, the printing errors accumulating during a continuous four-sensor array print also fall within the contact tolerance.

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Acknowledgment

This work was supported by National Science Foundation awards MRI #1828355 and EPSCOR #1849213, and GDAS’ Project of Science and Technology Development #2022GDASZH-2022010111. We would like to thank Jordan Dowdy, Brian Goulet, and Douglas Jackson for their help with the hardware setup and experiments.

Funding

National Science Foundation awards MRI #1828355 and EPSCOR #1849213, and GDAS’ Project of Science and Technology Development #2022GDASZH-2022010111.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Semiconductor, Guangdong Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, China

    Danming Wei

  2. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Danming Wei, Rusohi Zhang, Ji-Tzuoh Lin, Olalekan O. Olowo, Andrew S. Nimon, Moath Alqatamin & Dan O. Popa

  3. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Dilan Ratnayake

  4. Louisville Automation and Robotics Research Institute, University of Louisville, Louisville, KY, USA

    Andriy Sherehiy

Authors
  1. Danming Wei
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  2. Rusohi Zhang
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  9. Dan O. Popa
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Contributions

Danming Wei worked on the design, implementation, and calibration of the NeXus platform and the design and fabrication of the tactile sensor, and wrote the main manuscript text; Ruoshi Zhang and Ji-Tzuoh Lin worked on the design and simulation of the tactile sensor; Dilan Ratnayake and Olalekan O. Olowo worked on the characterization of the Aerosol Jetting printer with the silver ink for printing sensor structures; Andrew S. Nimon, Moath Alqatamin, and Andriy Sherehiy worked on the development of hardware and software of the NeXus platform; Dan Popa was overall principal investigator for this study; he contributed the calibration methods based on LRM principles, results analysis, and edits to the text; All authors reviewed the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Danming Wei.

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Wei, D., Zhang, R., Lin, JT. et al. Precision evaluation of tactile sensor fabrication using a robotic additive manufacturing platform. J Micro-Bio Robot 20, 1 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12213-024-00166-z

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