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  • Low Profile Stretch Sensor for Soft Wearable Robotics

Sareh, Sina and Noh, Yohan, 2018, Conference or Workshop, Low Profile Stretch Sensor for Soft Wearable Robotics at RoboSoft 2018- IEEE RAS International Conference on Soft Robotics, Palazzo Pancaldi, Livorno, Italy, 24-28 Apr 2018.

Abstract or Description:

This paper presents a low profile stretch sensor for integration into soft structures, robots and wearables. The sensor mechanism uses a single piece of highly flexible and light weight optical fibre and is based on the notion that bending an optical fibre modulates the intensity of the light transmitted through the fibre, a technique often referred as macrobending light loss. In this arrangement, the optical fibre originates from sensor’s electronic unit, passes through a stretchable encasing structure in a macrobend pattern, and then loop back to the same unit resulting in a simplified electrical and optical design; the closed optical loop allows for no electronics at one end of the sensor making it safe for human robotics applications, and no optical interference with the external environment eliminating the need for complex conditioning circuitries. Of particular interest of the soft robotics community, the ability of this custom macrobend stretch sensor to flexibly adapt its configuration allows preserving the inherent softness and compliance of the robot which it is installed on. Our experimental results indicate that the optical fibre’s bending radius is the dominant design parameter for sufficiently complex patterns, a finding that can facilitate generalisation of the sensing methods across different scales. The measurement performance of the mechanism and its impact on the stiffness of the encasing structure is benchmarked against a custom calibration and testing system.

Official URL: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/8405372
Subjects: Other > Engineering > H600 Electronic and Electrical Engineering
Other > Engineering > H600 Electronic and Electrical Engineering > H670 Robotics and Cybernetics
Other > Engineering > H600 Electronic and Electrical Engineering > H670 Robotics and Cybernetics > H671 Robotics
School or Centre: School of Design
Identification Number or DOI: https://doi.org/10.1109/ROBOSOFT.2018.8405372
Additional Information:

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Date Deposited: 03 Mar 2018 15:01
Last Modified: 18 Sep 2019 13:55
URI: https://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/id/eprint/3221
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