Novel Structural Flexible Magnetic Tactile Sensors: Design, Numerical Studies and Tactile Recognition
Jingyi Liu, Wenkai Yu, Dingcong Zhang, Yuanbin Liu, Xin Li, Abuzar Es'haghi Oskui, Wenjun Xu, Hongyan Yuan
Abstract
Magnetic tactile sensors (MTSs) exhibit high sensitivity, flexibility, and ability to operate without direct contact, demonstrating outstanding performance in human-machine interaction and tactile feedback. However, the existing MTSs lack numerical models that can accurately calculate the force magnetic coupling. To address this limitation, this work introduces a FEA-based magnetic field calculation algorithm to calculate the change in magnetic flux density under compress process. Additionally, structural flexible magnetic tactile sensors (SFMTSs) are proposed, designed with zigzag-type and serpentine-type, that can improve the sensing sensitivity benefiting from the specific structure. The sensitivity of the optimal structure can reach 7.4908 Gs/N, representing a 19% improvement over conventional film-type MTSs without structural features. Furthermore, a neural network-based perception model is also developed to predict the position and magnitude of tactile signals (force or displacement). The proposed SFMTSs are anticipated to be applied to various high-sensitivity tactile perception scenarios, such as precision robotics, wearable technology, and medical diagnostics.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{ral2025_novelstructuralf,
title = {Novel Structural Flexible Magnetic Tactile Sensors: Design, Numerical Studies and Tactile Recognition},
author = {Jingyi Liu and Wenkai Yu and Dingcong Zhang and Yuanbin Liu and Xin Li and Abuzar Es'haghi Oskui and Wenjun Xu and Hongyan Yuan},
booktitle = {RA-L 2025},
year = {2025}
}