Abstract
Problem statement: Research and development in tactile sensor are esc alating due to the fact that advanced robot needs to interact with sur rounding environments which is very complex, dynamic, uncontrolled and difficult to perceive rel iably. Recent research has been focusing in development of new tactile sensor that takes advant age of advances in materials, Micro- Electromechanical Systems (MEMS) and semiconductor technology. To date, several basic sensing principles are commonly used in tactile sensor such as capacitive sensor, piezoelectric sensor, inductive sensor, opto-electrical and piezo-resisti ve sensor. However they are still lack of sensitivi ty and low dynamic range in sensing the changes of for ces in 3 axes and not durable enough to perform in various working environments. Approach: Three different designs of optical tactile sensor was proposed and analyzed. The overall design of the te st-rig of the system was presented. The working principle was based on the deformation of the silic one tactile sensor. The deformation image will be transferred through high quality medical fiberscope and will be recorded using a CCD camera. The image will be stored in a computer for further anal ysis to relate the image with the given forces. The se data can be used to control a robotic gripper so th at it can perform gently and precisely like human tactile sensing capability but with greater strengt h and durability in various working environments. Results: The sensor had been designed and an experimental t est rig was developed. Initial experiment was carried out to check the potential of this tech nique. Based on results, there is almost a linear relationship between the forces and the deformation of the tactile sensor. The amount of deformation i s calculated based on the analyzed image data. Conclusion: The results of the experiment gave a convincing idea and provide a ground for further re search to enhance this system to be an alternative tactile sensor in future.
Highlights
Robotic grippers and manipulators are widely used all over the world to perform various tasks especially in industrial application for repetitive and dangerous working atmosphere
Silicone rubber: Silicon rubbers are polymers having the alternate atoms of silicon and oxygen known as Silica (SiO2) in the main chain with organic side groups attached to the silicone atoms (Bhat, 2005)
Based on the plotted graph, we can see that there is almost a linear relationship between the position of Point 2 to point 1 which is given by R1 and between point 3 and point 1 which is given by R2 with the displacement given to the tactile sensor
Summary
Robotic grippers and manipulators are widely used all over the world to perform various tasks especially in industrial application for repetitive and dangerous working atmosphere. With the advancement in robotic research, more and more capability of robot is developed to perform various tasks that need manipulation skills such as in medical operation, humanoid robots and household work. The range of object hardness changes instantly while the robot performing its duty These applications need an active gripper, which can react to the variable force or pressure just like the humans tactile sensing capability. Many traditional sensing technologies seem do not fit the requirements of robot manipulation in human environments due to lack of sensitivity, dynamic range and material strength. Research team at Massachuset Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed sensor with a protruding shape that allows them to make contact with the world in a similar way to the ridges of a human fingerprint. By analyzing strengths and weaknesses of the above mentioned researches, a new tactile sensor based on a silicone material combined with image analysis technique was proposed in this study
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