Sub-surface Elasticity Imaging Sensor based on Bio-Optics with Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS)

Abstract

A novel tactile sensor capable of measuring material constants of the sensed object has been fabricated and demonstrated in the current study. Although many tactile sensors have been previously developed, the resolution of these measurements is still fairly low compared to the sensation of human touch. The tactile sensor we propose is comprised of an elastic optical waveguide unit, a high resolution CCD camera unit, and an LED light source. The sensing element is formed on Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) and is illuminated along its four edges by LED light sources. The sensor operates on the principle of total internal reflection within an optical waveguide. Since the waveguide is surrounded by air, having a lower refractive index than the waveguide, the incident light directed into the waveguide remains contained within it. When an object compresses the waveguide, the contact area of the waveguide deforms and causes the light to scatter. Since the scattered light is directly captured by a CCD camera, the tactile resolution of the proposed sensor is based on the resolution of the camera. The normal force is detected from the integrated gray scale values of bright pixels emitted from the deformed area of the optical waveguide. Non-rigid point matching algorithm with Laplacian smoothing spline is used to estimate the displacement of control points between 3D rendered tactile images captured under different compression ratios. The strain experienced through the sensed object is derived from a function of the associated displacement. Experiments were conducted to demonstrate the ability of the proposed sensing strategy in measuring Young’s modulus of polymer samples within 4.23 % error.