Modeling and Analysis of a Frictional Sliding Soft Fingertip, and Experimental Validations

We have proposed a dynamic model of a soft fingertip to investigate its sliding motion on a plane with friction. The fingertip is comprised virtually of a finite number of elastic, compressible and bendable cantilevers whose free ends act as contact points. Moreover, we utilize virtual linkage spring–damper elements between the contact points to represent interactions between neighboring cantilevers on the contact surface. By introducing Coulomb's law into each contact point, we are able to capture the frictional characteristic during sliding motions of the fingertip, especially stick–slip motions. We also present experimental results to validate this model.