Design and simulation of liquid metal fingerprint-bioinspired tactile sensors

With the advancement of technology, increasingly stringent requirements have been imposed on the sensory capabilities of robots. Traditional rigid tactile sensors exhibit poor flexibility and considerable weight, rendering them inadequate for practical applications. Therefore, based on bionic principles that replicate the structural characteristics of human fingerprints, this paper proposes a fingerprint-bioinspired microchannel structure for flexible tactile sensors. The relationship between the sensor’s resistance variation, applied pressure, and microchannel dimensions was investigated using linear elastic fracture mechanics (LEFM). Solid mechanics and electrical simulations were performed on the structural design of the liquid metal fingerprint-bioinspired tactile sensor. Comparisons with theoretical analysis results revealed consistent variation trends between the simulation and theoretical outcomes. Within the allowable error range, the simulation results effectively validate the accuracy of the theoretical analysis, thereby confirming the feasibility of the structural design for the liquid metal fingerprint-bioinspired tactile sensor.