18 Research and Preparation Method of Flexible Tactile Sensor Material

A kind of new material suitable for flexible tactile sensor and its preparation method will be introduced. The tactile sensor applied this new material and method can be used in many kinds of occasions which contacting pressure measurement such as humanoid robot sensitive skin, medicine and so on. This material is composite of carbon black and silicone rubber filled nano-SiO2 as the main raw material, with a view to obtain sensitive material of flexible tactile sensor with both flexibility and tactile function. In this chapter, based on the new flexible tactile sensor material, the effect that the material filled nano-SiO2 has made to electrical and mechanical performance of pressure sensitive conductive rubber is investigated so as to theoretically analyze the property of nano-SiO2 and the mechanism of modified by nano-SiO2. Meanwhile, through the experiments of doping nano-particles into the flexible tactile sensor sensitive materials, the effect of nanoSiO2 on the conductivity, resistance creep behavior and temperature stability of the sensitive materials were researched, as well as analyses are made on improving linearity, hysteresis and repeatability of tactile sensor. Moreover, the performance comparison produced by filled different content nano-SiO2 and unfilled nano-SiO2 into the new flexible tactile sensor material. Thereby, the optimum filled weight percent of nano-SiO2 was obtained. The results showed that nano-SiO2 has good modified role for flexible tactile sensor. The preparation method will be used liquid silicone rubber solution blending molding. At room temperature and under normal pressure, the pressure sensitive liquid silicone rubber solution is filled into the arbitrary tactile sensor structure model and cured into molding. This method is suitable for various structures of the tactile sensor array.