Tactile sensing: A key technology for safe physical human robot interaction

Human-robot interaction in a shared workspace permits and often even requires physical contact between humans and robots. A key technology to ensure that physical human robot interaction is safe is to monitor contact forces by providing the robot with a tactile sensor as an artificial skin. This paper introduces a pressure sensitive skin that can be adapted to complex geometries and offers reliable contact measurements on the entire robot body. Equipped with integrated cushioning elements the sensitive skin can reduce the risk of dangerous injuries in physical human-robot interaction. Beside safety related functions, the sensitive skin offers touch based robot motion control which simplifies human-robot interaction.