Abstract:

The inadequacy of tactile perception systems in humanoid robotic manipulators limits the breadth of available robotic applications. Here, we designed a multifunctional flexible tactile sensor for robotic fingers that provides capabilities similar to those of human skin sensing modalities. This sensor utilizes a novel PI-MXene/SrTiO₃ hybrid aerogel developed as a sensing unit with the additional abilities of electromagnetic transmission and thermal insulation to adapt to certain complex environments. Moreover, PI provides a high strength skeleton, MXene realizes a pressure sensing function, and MXene/SrTiO₃ achieves both thermoelectric and infrared radiation response behaviors. Furthermore, via the pressure response mechanism and unsteady state heat transfer, these aerogel derived flexible sensors realize multimodal sensing and recognition capabilities with minimal cross-coupling. They, can differentiate between thirteen types of hardness and four types of material from objects with accuracies of 94% and 85%, respectively, using a decision tree algorithm. In addition, based on the infrared radiation sensing function, a sensory array was assembled and different shapes of objects were successfully recognized. These findings demonstrate that this PI-MXene/SrTiO₃ aerogel provides a new concept for expanding the multifunctionality of flexible sensors such that the manipulator can more closely reach the tactile level of the human hand. This advancement, reduces the difficulty of integrating humanoid robots, and provides a new breadth of application scenarios for their possibility.