Synthetic Tactile Sensor for Macroscopic Roughness Estimation Based on Spatial-Coding Contact Processing

Traditional tactile sensors primarily measure macroscopic surface features but do not directly estimate how humans perceive such surface roughness. Sensors that mimic human tactile processing could bridge this gap. This study proposes a method for predicting macroscopic roughness perception based on a sensing principle that closely resembles human tactile information processing. Humans are believed to assess macroscopic roughness based on the spatial distribution of subcutaneous deformation and resultant neural activities when touching a textured surface. To replicate this spatial-coding mechanism, we captured distributed contact information using a camera through a flexible, transparent material with fingerprint-like surface structures, simulating finger skin. Images were recorded under varying contact forces ranging from 1 N to 3 N. The spatial frequency components in the range of 0.1–1.0 mm⁻¹ were extracted from these contact images, and a linear combination of these components was used to approximate human roughness perception recorded via the magnitude estimation method. The results indicate that for roughness specimens with rectangular or circular protrusions of surface wavelengths between 2 and 5 mm, the estimated roughness values achieved an average error comparable to the standard deviation of participants’ roughness ratings. These findings demonstrate the potential of macroscopic roughness estimation based on human-like tactile information processing and highlight the viability of vision-based sensing in replicating human roughness perception.