Artificial Sweat for Humanoid Finger

To achieve favorable Frictional Tactile Sensation (FTS) for robot and humanoid fingers, this report investigated the effects of human finger sweat on Friction Coefficient (FC) and verified the effectiveness of artificial sweat on FTS for a humanoid finger. The results show that the model sweat (salt and urea water faked real sweat) increases the FC of the real finger sliding on the high hygroscopic and rough surface (paper), whereas on the low hygroscopic and smooth surface (PMMA), the sweat forms a fluid film and decreases FC, restricting severe finger adhesion. Further, the film formation and capillary adhesion force of sweat were discussed. The experimental results with the artificial sweats (ethanol and water) and humanoid finger (silicone rubber skin with tactile sensors) verifies the effectiveness. The artificial sweat restricts severe adhesion (stick-slip vibration), and enhances cognitive capability of FTS.