Assessing a new Frequency Modulation architecture for artificial large area skin-like sensory array deployment in robotic platforms

This work presents a new architecture to deploy large-area artificial skin to enhance the spatial awareness of robotic and prosthetic platforms. Adding sensing information will improve robots’ safety both around humans and in unstructured environments. Unlike biological systems, current artificial platforms lack a fully-integrated skin-like layer that would significantly improve dexterity and capabilities. However, artificial skin is limited by the technical issues of scaling power to and communication from many sensors. Many current solutions are either relatively low-power with limited sensor type e.g. contact only, or capable of multiple sensor type readings at the expense of requiring higher power. Their data acquisition and sampling rates are also constrained by the technique used to transfer them. The solution to address these problems uses frequency modulation (FM) to encode many signals on a single wire. This solution is applied as an internal robotic communication protocol. This work describes the design rational and experimentally validates the concept within the frequency range of tactile mechanoreceptors. The proposed architecture has the potential to enable large-area skin deployment.