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Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex.

Somatosensation

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.

Sensory Functions of the Skin

Sensory Functions of the Skin

The skin is the largest organ of the human body and plays a crucial role in our sensory perception. It contains a vast network of sensory receptors that contribute to the skin's protective function by perceiving physical, biological, and environmental cues and generating relevant responses.
There are two main categories of receptors on the skin: capsulated and non-capsulated. The non-capsulated ones are mainly the pain receptors. The capsulated ones can be further categorized based on the...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Sep 11, 2025

Rod-based Fabrication of Customizable Soft Robotic Pneumatic Gripper Devices for Delicate Tissue Manipulation

Rod-based Fabrication of Customizable Soft Robotic Pneumatic Gripper Devices for Delicate Tissue Manipulation

Published on: August 2, 2016

Bioarchitectonics-inspired soft grippers with cutaneous slip perception.

Jiangtao Su^1,2,3, Joel Ming Rui Tan^2,3, Jiajun Liu⁴

¹Innovative Centre for Flexible Devices (iFLEX), Max Planck-NTU Joint Lab for Artificial Senses, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, Singapore.

Science Advances

|August 13, 2025

Summary

Researchers developed a novel soft slip sensor inspired by human touch. This sensor, integrated into a soft robotic gripper, enhances grip stability and adaptability for autonomous manipulation tasks.

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Area of Science:

Robotics
Materials Science
Bio-inspired Engineering

Background:

The demand for dexterous robotic manipulation necessitates advanced sensing and control for slip prevention.
Soft grippers offer compliance but lack real-time sensory feedback and have complex dynamics.
Human tactile perception provides a model for advanced robotic sensing.

Purpose of the Study:

To develop a bioarchitectonics-inspired soft slip sensor for enhanced sensitivity to incipient slip and shear force.
To engineer a soft gripper with a linear pressure-to-force response for predictable force modulation.
To create a closed-loop sensorimotor framework for improved soft robotic grasping.

Main Methods:

Designed a 3D soft slip sensor utilizing crack and stress concentration principles.
Engineered a soft gripper with a linear pressure-to-force characteristic.
Conformally integrated flexible slip sensors onto the soft gripper.
Established a closed-loop sensorimotor system for real-time feedback and control.

Main Results:

The bio-inspired sensor demonstrated enhanced sensitivity to incipient slip and shear forces.
The integrated system achieved real-time detection of early-stage slippage.
The soft robotic system showed improved reliability and adaptability in grasping tasks.
Interfacial frictional properties could be investigated using the developed system.

Conclusions:

The developed soft slip sensor and gripper system provides a robust solution for slip prevention in soft robotics.
Bioarchitectonics-inspired design and sensor integration enable a perceptive soft robotic system.
The closed-loop sensorimotor framework significantly enhances the performance of soft robotic grasping.