Tactile Sensing Array for Multi-Phalanx Sensing in Humanoid Hands

Abstract

Humanoid hands require tactile feedback across the whole finger, not just the fingertip, to grasp and manipulate objects properly. Vision and proprioception alone cannot reliably provide this information, particularly when the hand's own fingers occlude the camera's view of the grasp. We present a low-cost tactile array for a humanoid finger, made from Velostat and conductive tape. The fingertip carries seven contact points including a 2x3 matrix wrapped across its front, left, and right faces, and a separate contact point at the tip. The proximal and middle phalanges each carry a single front-facing contact line. We measure the sensor's hysteresis and recovery time after release, through repeated loading and press-release tests. We also test a compliant, 3D-printed contact structure with a gap and a bump, inspired by similar designs in prior work, and show it cuts recovery time by 74% compared to a flush-contact baseline. We then show the sensor can produce distinct activation patterns for different contact geometries (flat, edge, corner) at the fingertip, and that it registers contact across all three phalanges during a grip. Finally, we discuss the limits of our fabrication changes and point to software-based compensation as a promising way to more directly fix the remaining hysteresis in the future.