Mun Heeju, Diaz Cortes David Santiago, Youn Jung-Hwan, Kyung Ki-Uk
Department of Mechanical Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Tangible Interface Creative Research Section, Electronics and Telecommunications Research (ETRI), Daejeon, Republic of Korea.
Soft Robot. 2024 Aug;11(4):628-638. doi: 10.1089/soro.2023.0068. Epub 2024 Apr 1.
In recent years, soft robotic grippers have emerged as a promising solution for versatile and safe manipulation of objects in various fields. However, precise force control is critical, especially when handling delicate or fragile objects, to avoid excessive grip force application or to prevent object slippage. Herein, we propose a novel three-degree-of-freedom force sensor incorporated within a soft robotic gripper to realize stable grasping with force feedback. The proposed optical sensor employs lightweight and compact optical fibers, thereby allowing for cost-effective fabrication, and a robust sensing system that is immune to electromagnetic fields. By innervating the soft gripper with optical fibers, a durable system is achieved with the fibers functioning as a strengthening layer, thereby eliminating the need for embedding an external stiffening structure for efficient bending actuation. The innovative contact-based light loss sensing mechanism allows for a robust and stable sensing mechanism with low drift (<0.1% over 9000 cycles) that can be applied to soft pneumatic bending grippers. We used the developed sensor-incorporated soft gripper to grasp various objects, including magnetic materials, and achieved slip detection along with grip force feedback without any signal interference. Overall, this study proposes a robust measuring multi-degree-of-freedom force sensor that can be incorporated into grippers for improved grasping stability.
近年来，软机器人抓手已成为在各个领域对物体进行多功能且安全操作的一种有前景的解决方案。然而，精确的力控制至关重要，特别是在处理易碎或脆弱物体时，以避免施加过大的抓握力或防止物体滑落。在此，我们提出一种新型的三自由度力传感器，将其集成在软机器人抓手中，以实现有力反馈的稳定抓取。所提出的光学传感器采用轻质且紧凑的光纤，从而实现经济高效的制造，以及一个对电磁场免疫的强大传感系统。通过用光纤为软抓手提供神经支配，实现了一个耐用的系统，其中光纤起到加强层的作用，从而无需嵌入外部加强结构即可实现高效的弯曲驱动。创新的基于接触的光损耗传感机制允许一种强大且稳定的传感机制，其具有低漂移（在9000个周期内<0.1%），可应用于软气动弯曲抓手。我们使用所开发的集成传感器的软抓手抓取各种物体，包括磁性材料，并在没有任何信号干扰的情况下实现了滑动检测以及抓握力反馈。总体而言，本研究提出了一种强大的测量多自由度力传感器，该传感器可集成到抓手中以提高抓取稳定性。
