A Soft, Distributed, Digital 3axis Skin Sensor Employing a Hybrid PermanentAdjustable Magnetic Field In this letter, we present a new iteration of a prototype sensor module that can be used as a skin sensor for robots. The sensor uses a hybrid arrangement that consists in a small permanent magnet and an electromagnet working together above a 3axis magnetic sensor. Both layers are separated by a flexible material that provides compliance to the sensor module. The sensitivity of the sensor can be adjusted by changing the flow of current on the electromagnet, while the permanent magnet increases the intensity of the overall magnetic field to optimize the utilization of the bandwidth of the sensor. Each sensor module includes a microcontroller with digital output that offers multimodal and distributed sensing capabilities. Problem areas of the previous version are indicated, the magnet array idea is presented and tested, and finally experiments are performed on different shapes of a flexible material to be used as middle layer.

Development of a 3axis Human Fingertip Tactile Sensor with an OrthoPlanar Spring Human experts have mastered many manual skills. Transferring those skills to robots or human novices is challenging. Not only the movements, but also the exerted forces are of importance. In this paper we propose a sensor that can measure the force vector acting on the human fingertip, without covering the part of the fingertip that is contact with the touched object. Compared to our previous iterations of this sensor, we use a spring instead of viscoelastic material as the deformable material for the sensor. While it is challenging to include a spring in the given form factor, springs have the benefit of lower hysteresis than viscoelastic materials. This paper presents the integration of the spring in the sensor and shows experimental validation with 8 subjects. Compared to our previous version of the sensor with 2 Hall effect sensors, we achieved improved sensing characteristics.