The objective of the research reported here is the uesign, modeling and analysis of a planar photoelastic tactile transducer for the recovery of input force profiles.

As a first step in this research, the forward analysis of a tactile sensor with one-layer planar photoelastic element, to which a normal-force profile is applied, is carried out. Correspondingly, two important parameters of the photoelastic tactile sensor, the phase-lead and Iight-intensity distributions, are determined using closed-from equations (CFEs).

Aimed at improving the one-layer transducer, a novel two-layer photoelastic transducer is then proposed. The forward analysis of this transducers is carried out for both normal- and generalized-force profiles. The transducer is modeled and analyzed using CFEs and FiniteElement Analysis (FEA). FEA allows the analysis of a transducer having different mechanical properties in its two layers, as well as a variety of Boundary Conditions (BCs). Correspondingly, it is shown that the choice of BCs directly influences the dynamic range of the photoelastic sensor.

In the process of solving the inverse problem, that is, the recovery of the force-profile applied to the sensor, one needs to recover the phase-lead distribution from the available lightintensity distribution. A novel method is proposed for this purpose. The recovery is carried out for both ideal (noise-free) and non-ideal Iight-intensity distributions. Further, it is proven that the recovery of the phase-lead distribution under non-ideal conditions is ill-posed.

As part of the feasibility study for the proposed sensor, a photoelastic-transducer prototype was also constructed, and an optical setup was implemented with which to test it. Correspondingly, preliminary experimental results are presented.