Improving Sensing Coverage and Compliance of 3D-Printed Artificial Skins Through Multi-Modal Sensing and Soft Materials
Carson Kohlbrenner, Caleb Escobedo, Sayak Ray, Alexander Dickhans, Anna Soukhovei + 3 more
TLDR
This paper introduces a 3D-printed artificial skin combining ToF and self-capacitance sensing with soft materials for improved coverage and compliance.
Key contributions
- Develops a hybrid ToF and self-capacitance (SC) 3D-printed artificial skin for multi-modal sensing.
- Incorporates soft, compliant coverings for enhanced impact absorption and pressure-correlated tactile responses.
- Features a streamlined electrical interface between printed traces and external electronics.
- Validated on a robot arm, enabling contact detection, scene reconstruction, and pressure sensing.
Why it matters
This work overcomes limitations of previous 3D-printed artificial skins by integrating multi-modal sensing and soft materials. It significantly improves practical usability, compliance, and sensing capabilities, paving the way for more robust and sensitive robotic systems.
Original Abstract
3D-printed artificial skins are a scalable approach to whole-body tactile and proximity coverage, but prior implementations have been limited to unimodal sensing and rigid materials. To improve the practical usability of 3D-printed artificial skins, we present a hybrid time-of-flight (ToF) and self-capacitance (SC) sensing skin that demonstrates multi-modal sensing integration, soft compliant coverings for impact absorption and pressure sensing, and a streamlined electrical interface between printed conductive traces and external electronics. We show that combining ToF and SC modalities enables contact detection, scene reconstruction, and pressure-correlated tactile responses with the compliant covering by deploying six artificial skin units with 40 sensing elements over an FR3 robot arm.
📬 Weekly AI Paper Digest
Get the top 10 AI/ML arXiv papers from the week — summarized, scored, and delivered to your inbox every Monday.