Model-driven triboelectric sensors for multidimensional tactile perception

• Published in: Nano energy Vol. 114; p. 108658
• Main Authors: Hu, Songtao, Lu, Wenhui, Li, Haoran, Shi, Xi, Peng, Zhike, Cao, Xiaobao
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier Ltd 01.09.2023
• Subjects: Biological laboratory automation; Multidimensional; Robot; Tactile; Triboelectric nanogenerators; Triboelectric nanogenerators; Multidimensional; Robot; Biological laboratory automation; Tactile
• ISSN: 2211-2855
• DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2023.108658

Tactile perception, as a key sensory function for environment awareness, has been the subject of extensive scientific research and technological application, producing artificial tactile sensors using piezoresistance, capacitance, magnetism to emerging triboelectricity. However, the decoupling of normal and shear loads remains elusive and faces a table-lookup challenge. Here, we report a tactile array sensor consisting of four triboelectric nanogenerator units with single-electrode-mode triboelectrification to realize the decoupling of normal and shear loads, where a unified theoretical model is developed based on a spinosum-hill small deformation hypothesis to address the table-lookup problem. The above decoupling of the normal and shear loads is further extended from a two-dimensional plane to a three-dimensional space based on the superposition principle of triboelectric outputs. Moreover, for a biological laboratory automation application, our sensor is installed on a robot manipulator to realize an automatic pipetting operation based on force feedback, solving the problem of droplet residue. We believe this study to be the very demonstration of model-driven tactile sensor for decoupling normal and shear loads, paving the way for the tactile perception of intelligent devices such as intelligent robotics. [Display omitted] •A TENG tactile array sensor is proposed to realize the decoupling of normal and shear loads.•The decoupling mechanism is revealed by developing a unified theoretical model.•The decoupling is extended from a two-dimensional plane to a three-dimensional space based on superposition principle.•The sensor is applied to a biological laboratory automation.