Tactile Sensors Based on Qualitative/Quantitative Analysis for Efficient Shape Reconstruction and Softness Evaluation

Abstract The human skin perceives the shape and softness of objects through special reactions of various mechanoreceptors. However, tactile sensors, especially sensing arrays, widely adopt analog signals and heavily rely on large amounts of data to extract sufficient information to evaluate these characteristics. To reduce the difficulty of signal transmission and data processing, a combination of qualitative/quantitative analysis is reported to achieve tactile perception with complex functions. Qualitative and quantitative analysis are based on pressure switches with digital‐signal characteristics and pressure sensors with analog‐signal characteristics, respectively. The pressure switches are manufactured through screen printing and showed excellent switching performance, including controllable pressure threshold, short response and recovery time, high stability, and discrete characteristics similar to digital signals. Two types of tactile sensors are further designed based on the qualitative/quantitative analysis. The two tactile sensors not only provide inspiration for information fusion methods, but also provide ideas for effectively integrating multiple sensors in a limited space. This work suggests that qualitative/quantitative analysis strategies can significantly simplify data processing while comparable to the previously reported tactile sensors with analog‐signal characteristics, demonstrating broad application potential in human‐machine interactions and robot tactile sensing.