A novel tactile sensing skin for surface perception

Humans use a fusion of pressure and temperature signals to perceive tactile stimuli. While replicating the complexity of human tactile sensing poses challenges, advancements in artificial tactile sensing skins play a crucial role in the progress of robotics and prosthetics. Here, we present a novel tactile sensing skin designed for the perception of diverse surfaces. It uses a microstructured porous tactile sensor, exhibiting notable sensitivity at 21.5 kPa^-1 under low-pressure conditions and 2.5 kPa^-1 in high-pressure scenarios. The sensor also boasts an impressively low detection limit of 2.5 Pa, allowing for discernment of subtle pressure variations. Simultaneously, we use a flexible temperature sensor exhibiting a sensitivity of 0.58% °C^-1 and swift response attributes to facilitate the detection of radiated heat from diverse surfaces. The incorporation of a multilayer perceptron (MLP) algorithm into the developed glove-like system, equipped with tactile and temperature sensors, achieves 87% accuracy in classifying 11 distinct surfaces.