title: Microfabricated tactile sensors for biomedical applications: a review.
abstract: During the last decades, tactile sensors based on different sensing principles have been developed due to the growing interest in robotics and, mainly, in medical applications. Several technological solutions have been employed to design tactile sensors; in particular, solutions based on microfabrication present several attractive features. Microfabrication technologies allow for developing miniaturized sensors with good performance in terms of metrological properties (e.g., accuracy, sensitivity, low power consumption, and frequency response). Small size and good metrological properties heighten the potential role of tactile sensors in medicine, making them especially attractive to be integrated in smart interfaces and microsurgical tools. This paper provides an overview of microfabricated tactile sensors, focusing on the mean principles of sensing, i.e., piezoresistive, piezoelectric and capacitive sensors. These sensors are employed for measuring contact properties, in particular force and pressure, in three main medical fields, i.e., prosthetics and artificial skin, minimal access surgery and smart interfaces for biomechanical analysis. The working principles and the metrological properties of the most promising tactile, microfabricated sensors are analyzed, together with their application in medicine. Finally, the new emerging technologies in these fields are briefly described.
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Research, Unit of Measurements and Biomedical Instrumentation, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo, Rome 21-00128, Italy; E-Mails: p.saccomandi@unicampus.it (P.S.); s.silvestri@unicampus.it (S.S.).
authors.forename: Paola
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Saccomandi
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Research, Unit of Measurements and Biomedical Instrumentation, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo, Rome 21-00128, Italy; E-Mails: p.saccomandi@unicampus.it (P.S.); s.silvestri@unicampus.it (S.S.).
authors.forename: Emiliano
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Schena
authors.affiliation: The BioRobotics Institute, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Polo Sant'Anna Valdera, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio 34, Pontedera (PI) 56025, Italy; E-Mail: oddoc@sssup.it.
authors.forename: Calogero Maria
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Oddo
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Research, Laboratory of Biomedical Robotics and Biomicrosystems, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo, Rome 21-00128, Italy; E-Mails: l.zollo@unicampus.it (L.Z.); e.guglielmelli@unicampus.it (E.G.).
authors.forename: Loredana
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zollo
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Research, Unit of Measurements and Biomedical Instrumentation, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo, Rome 21-00128, Italy; E-Mails: p.saccomandi@unicampus.it (P.S.); s.silvestri@unicampus.it (S.S.).
authors.forename: Sergio
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Silvestri
authors.affiliation: Center for Integrated Research, Laboratory of Biomedical Robotics and Biomicrosystems, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Via Álvaro del Portillo, Rome 21-00128, Italy; E-Mails: l.zollo@unicampus.it (L.Z.); e.guglielmelli@unicampus.it (E.G.).
authors.forename: Eugenio
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Guglielmelli
keywords: artificial skin; biomechanical measurements; endoscopy; medicine; microfabrication; microsurgery; prosthetic hands; tactile sensors