Conception and Simulation of a Hard Soft Interface for the Connection of Polymer Based Tactile Sensors to the Evaluation Unit

Abstract

The development of humanoid robots is highly topical at the moment and a lot of research institutes and univeristies around the world have undergoing studies concerning it. A sticking point hereby is the tactile rception of the robots to guarantee a safty contact with humans. In order to obtain this tactile information, years research on tactile sensors implemented on the cutis of the robots significantly increased. These tactile sensors consist of soft polymer material to compensate high strain. The aim of this thesis is the conception and simulation of a hard-soft-interface between the soft polymer tactile sensor and the rigid evaluation unit which analyzes the signals of the sensor. In order to implement the solution on a fingertip of a robot, the dimension of the mechanical and electrical connection of these two components has to be reduced. At first a concept is performed in accordance with the requirements and physical working principles. Afterwards a Finite Element Method (FEM) Analysis of the evaluated concept is executed under different loading conditions and with different geometry parameters to find an optimized structure of the hard-soft-interface. Therefore, the FEM simulation tool ANSYS is used. At last the developed solution is manufactured and implemented into the existing system.