Magnetic Tactile Sensor for Braille Reading

Abstract
We report a biomimetic magnetic tactile sensor for Braille characters reading. The sensor consists of magnetic nanocomposite artificial cilia implemented on magnetic micro sensors. The nanocomposite is produced from the highly elastic polydimethylsiloxane and iron nanowires that exhibit a permanent magnetic behavior. This design enables remote operation and does not require an additional magnetic field to magnetize the nanowires. The highly elastic nanocomposite is easy to pattern, corrosion resistant and thermally stable. The tactile sensors can detect vertical and shear forces, which allows recognizing small changes in surface texture, as in the case of Braille dots. The 6 dots of a braille cell are read from top to bottom with a tactile sensor array consisting of 4 elements and 1 mm long nanocomposite cilia.

Citation
Magnetic Tactile Sensor for Braille Reading 2016:1 IEEE Sensors Journal

Acknowledgements
Research reported in this publication is supported by the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

Publisher
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Journal
IEEE Sensors Journal

DOI
10.1109/JSEN.2016.2558599

Additional Links
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/lpdocs/epic03/wrapper.htm?arnumber=7460205

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