ioinspired flexible microfluidic shear force sensor skin

There is a need to gather rich, real-time tactile information to enhance robotic hand performance during haptic exploration and object manipulation. Measuring shear forces is useful for grasping and manipulating objects; however, there are limited effective shear sensing strategies that are compatible with existing end effectors. Here, we report a bioinspired and flexible, resistive microfluidic shear force sensor skin. The sensor skin is wrapped around a finger-shaped end effector and fixed at the location of the nail bed. When the skin is subjected to shear force, one side of the skin experiences tension while the other side experiences compression and bulges similar to a human fingerpad. The tension and compression are measured by liquid metal strain gauges, embedded in PDMS, that are strategically placed adjacent