 depth to 0mm to reduce the average palpation force level and minimize damage to the probe. Indeed,  as shown in related works, detecting deeper nodules requires deeper indentation and by consequence,  higher forces. Higher forces also lead to faster degradation of the tissue in repeated trials, making it  difficult to compare results. Moreover, the lateral sweeps used an array of capacitive tactile sensors, that  saturates if an excessive force is applied to locate the nodule. To avoid saturating the tactile sensor, we  used a nodule depth that meets all hardware requirements to demonstrate the role of stiffness variation  in conditioning the haptic perception during 0D localization of nodules in soft tissues. 