Development of pressure measurement type tactile soft sensor for life assist robot

• Published in: Nihon Kikai Gakkai ronbunshū. C Vol. 16; no. 1; pp. 77 - 82
• Main Authors: Sasaki, D, Noritsugu, T, Takaiwa, M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: Japanese
• Published: 01.01.2004
• ISSN: 0387-5024

Recently, robots have been expected to be used in various fields such as not only usual manufacturing industry but also medical welfare, agriculture, security system and so on. Especially, in the coming advanced aged society, the demand of robot will be more increased in medical welfare and human life assist technology. In such a field, since robots must work together with human or contact with a human body directly, they require safety and flexibility. In this study, in order to realize a flexible mechanisms satisfying the above requirements, a soft-mechanism has been developed. It is composed of a body made of silicone rubber and driven with a pneumatic power. Both the elasticity of rubber material and the air compressibility are effective to realize such a soft-mechanism. A developed tactile soft sensor is composed of cylindrical silicone rubber. When the force is applied to it, by detecting the inner pressure change with built-in pressure sensor, a tactile information can be detected. In this paper, firstly, we discuss the structure and the fundamental characteristics of this sensor. And then, applications of this sensor are experimentally discussed. The effectiveness of this sensor is shown from the results.