Abstract
To mimic human mechanoreceptors and give sense of touch to robots highly integrated and highly sensitive three-axial force micro sensors are required. In this paper, we present the fabrication and electro-mechanical characterization of silicon based 3D force micro sensors with piezoresistive gauges with a footprint less than 1.5 mm(2). The measurements have been validated with a Finite Element Modeling (FEM). The sensor sensitivities to normal and tangential loads are about 1.03 mV/V/mN and 1.6 mV/V/mN, respectively. For such high integrated 3D force sensors these values are among the highest sensitivities reported in the literature. High linearity and low hysteresis under normal forces have also been demonstrated. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.