Compact LED-Based Displacement Sensing for Robot Fingers

In this paper, we introduce a sensor designed for robotic fingers which can provide information on the displacements induced by external forces. Our sensor uses LEDs to sense the displacement between two plates connected by a transparent elastomer; when a force is applied to the finger, the elastomer displaces and the LED signals change. We show that using LEDs as both light emitters and receivers in this context provides high sensitivity, allowing such an emitter and receiver pairs to detect very small displacements. We characterize the standalone performance of the sensor by testing the ability of a supervised learning model to predict complete force and torque data from its raw signals, and obtain a mean error between 0. 05 and 0. 07 N across the three directions of force applied to the finger. Our method allows for compact packaging (fitting at the base of a finger) with no amplification electronics, low cost manufacturing, easy integration into a complete hand, and high overload shear forces and bending torques, suggesting future applicability to complete manipulation tasks.

Authors

• Amr El-Azizi
• Sharfin Islam
• Pedro Piacenza
• Kai Jiang
• Ioannis Kymissis
• Matei Ciocarlie

Keywords

• Hands
• Torque
• Force
• Supervised learning
• Receivers
• Elastomers
• Robot sensing systems
• Light emitting diodes
• Sensors
• Testing
• Robotic Finger
• Low Cost
• Light-emitting Diodes
• Signal Changes
• Raw Signal
• Manipulation Tasks
• Sensor Design
• Small Displacements
• Compact Packing
• Signal-to-noise
• Raw Reads
• Hysteresis
• 3D Printing
• Form Factor
• Photodiode
• Sensor Data
• Polydimethylsiloxane
• Residual Block
• Contact Force
• Tactile Sensor
• Net Force
• Rigid Plate
• Robotic Hand
• Top Plate
• 1D Convolutional Layers
• Raw Sensor Data
• Torque Components
• Camera Module
• Specific Force
• Motor Learning
• Contact Sensing
• LED emitter and receiver
• Robot Hand
• Robotic Manipulation