Wearable Fabric Tactile Sensors for Robotic Elderly Assistance

The demand for Robots in Elderly assistance is increasing due to the lack of human caregivers. In the context of Robot coexisting with the human beings in a home environment, for the safe and friendly interaction it is essential to endow the sense of touch through Tactile sensor systems. This paper proposes a novel scalable approach for tactile sensors based on low cost wearable conductive fabric. Fabric tactile sensor (FABTAC) is conformable with the robot body and can be used as a tactile sensing skin that perceives touch and force applied at the contact location. FABTAC sensors are developed as an array of touch sensors sewed on the cloth substrate with the stainless-steel conductive thread. The thermistor sensors are also sewed to fabric to perceive the temperature information. The FABTAC sensors are integrated on to the custom-made 3D printed Robotic hand and the tactile data is processed with a novel wearable electronic FLORA microcontroller platform. The acquired data can be used to provide a real time tactile feedback for performing assistive tasks like grasping objects of diverse profiles, avoiding slippage. The FABTAC sensors has the advantage of utilizing flexible, light weight sensors with good spatial and temporal resolution. Thus, the system can potentially aid the automation of daily life activities of the Elderly thereby enhancing the quality of their life.