Sensing arbitrary contact forces with a flexible porous dielectric elastomer.

Artificial tactile sensing in next-generation robots requires the development of flexible sensors for complicated tactile force measurements in both normal and tangential directions. A variety of microstructures have been proposed to be integrated with material development for the enhanced performance of the devices. However, there remains a great challenge in this field on how to decouple contact forces in spatially arbitrary directions with the electric signal readouts.