Research on a haptic sensor made using MCF conductive rubber

Abstract

To provide a new composite material having a high electrical sensitivity in thefields of robotics and sensing, a magnetic rubber having network-like magneticclusters was developed by utilizing a magnetic compound fluid (MCF). MCFrubber with small deformations can provide an effective sensor. In this paper, wereport many experiments in which changes of the MCF rubber’s resistance wereobserved when the rubber was compressed and a deformation was generated; we thenmade a trial haptic sensor using the MCF conductive rubber and performed manyexperiments to observe changes of the electrical resistance of the sensor. The resultsof experiments showed that the proposed sensor made with MCF conductiverubber is useful for sensing small amounts of pressure or small deformations.