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Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tactile sensors acquire tactile information through physical touch; measurands are, for example, temperature, vibration, softness, texture, shape, composition, and shear and normal forces. Electronic/artificial skin comprises embedded electronic systems which integrate tactile sensing arrays, signal acquisition, data processing and decoding, and which can transmit collated information. Such electronic/artificial skin will become one of the main sensing essentials in prosthetics, bionics, robotics, virtual reality, haptic devices, IoT, etc.

Tactile sensors are basically distributed sensors which translate mechanical and physical variables and pain stimuli into electrical variables. Contact information is further processed and conveyed to a supervising system. Tactile arrays ought to be mechanically flexible (i.e., conformable to the object they are applied to) and stretchable, and tactile information decoding must be implemented in real time. The development of artificial tactile sensing is a big challenge, as it involves numerous research areas. Application domains include humanoid and industrial robotics, prosthetics, biomedical instrumentation, health care, cyber physical systems, virtual reality, and arts, to name but a few.

Recent and relevant achievements in materials and transducers have not yet successfully boosted system developments due to the challenging gaps which still need to be filled at many levels, e.g., data decoding and processing, miniaturization, mechanical compliance, and robustness, among others. Tactile sensing has developed rapidly over the past three decades but has yet to achieve high-impact breakthroughs in application domains.

In this Special Issue, we focus on both insights and advancements in tactile sensing with the goal of bridging different research areas, e.g., material science, electronics, robotics, neuroscience, mechanics, sensors, MEMS/NEMS, addictive and 3D manufacturing, and bio- and neuro-engineering.

We would like to receive commentaries, perspectives, and insightful reviews on related topics as well as technological breakthroughs of original works and civil and industrial applications in both short communications and full papers.

Prof. Maurizio Valle
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

Innovative structural and sensing materials
Manufacturing technology
Additive and 3D manufacturing
Novel tactile sensors
Flexible, conformable, and stretchable sensors and arrays Electronic interface
Artificial and electronic skin
Tactile data processing and interpretation Innovative applications
Haptic devices
Touch-based human–robot interaction
Tactile and visual sensing integration
Tactile Internet
Tactile sensing in prosthetics, neuro-rehabilitation, neuro- and bio-engineering, consumer goods, arts, IoT

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

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16 pages, 4821 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Fine Texture Detection Based on a Solid–Liquid Composite Flexible Tactile Sensor Array

by Weiting Liu, Guoshi Zhang, Binpeng Zhan, Liang Hu and Tao Liu

Micromachines 2022, 13(3), 440; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/mi13030440 - 14 Mar 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1953

Abstract

Surface texture information plays an important role in the cognition and manipulation of an object. Vision and touch are the two main methods for extracting an object’s surface texture information. However, vision is often limited since the viewing angle is uncertain during manipulation. In this article, we propose a fine surface texture detection method based on a stochastic resonance algorithm through a novel solid–liquid composite flexible tactile sensor array. A thin flexible layer and solid–liquid composite conduction structure on the sensor effectively reduce the attenuation of the contact force and enhance the sensitivity of the sensor. A series of ridge texture samples with different heights (0.9, 4, 10 μm), different widths (0.3, 0.5, 0.7, 1 mm), but the same spatial period (2 mm) of ridges were used in the experiment. The experimental results prove that the stochastic resonance algorithm can significantly improve the signal characteristic of the output signal of the sensor. The sensor has the capability to detect fine ridge texture information. The mean relative error of the estimation for the spatial period was 1.085%, and the ridge width and ridge height, respectively, have a monotonic mapping relationship with the corresponding model output parameters. The sensing capability to sense a fine texture of tactile senor surpasses the limit of human fingers. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tactile Sensing Technology and Systems, Volume II)

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Review

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26 pages, 728 KiB

Open AccessReview

Progress of Research on the Application of Nanoelectronic Smelling in the Field of Food

by Junjiang Sha, Chong Xu and Ke Xu

Micromachines 2022, 13(5), 789; https://0-doi-org.brum.beds.ac.uk/10.3390/mi13050789 - 18 May 2022

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 1704

Abstract

In the past 20 years, the development of an artificial olfactory system has made great progress and improvements. In recent years, as a new type of sensor, nanoelectronic smelling has been widely used in the food and drug industry because of its advantages of accurate sensitivity and good selectivity. This paper reviews the latest applications and progress of nanoelectronic smelling in animal-, plant-, and microbial-based foods. This includes an analysis of the status of nanoelectronic smelling in animal-based foods, an analysis of its harmful composition in plant-based foods, and an analysis of the microorganism quantity in microbial-based foods. We also conduct a flavor component analysis and an assessment of the advantages of nanoelectronic smelling. On this basis, the principles and structures of nanoelectronic smelling are also analyzed. Finally, the limitations and challenges of nanoelectronic smelling are summarized, and the future development of nanoelectronic smelling is proposed. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Tactile Sensing Technology and Systems, Volume II)

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