A high sensitivity and multi-axis fringing electric field based capacitive tactile force sensor for robot assisted surgery

This paper presents a design of multi-axis tactile force sensor using the fringe effect of an electric field between stationary patterned electrodes. The unique configuration of the electrodes consisting of four separate square-shaped sensing electrodes, with each encircled by excitation electrodes, allows to achieve enhanced fringe field effect and hence sensitivity. The proposed sensor can decouple the normal, shear and angular shear applied forces. The sensor is fabricated using low-cost rapid prototyping techniques with flexible Ecoflex 00–30 and silicone rubber RTV-528 as the elastomers for contact with the environment. An analytical model is developed that correlates the nominal capacitance of the sensor with that of the geometric dimensions of the stationary electrodes and air cavity height between the electrodes and elastomer. The force measurement ranges in the normal, shear, and angular axis are 5 N, 1.5 N, and 1 N respectively. The sensor shows a perfectly linear response, repeatability, and a low hysteresis error, thermal stability and robustness to the environmental interferences that makes it suitable to be used for force feedback in minimally invasive robotic surgery.