Year: 2020
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: Commercial six-axis force-torque sensors suffer from being some combination of expensive, fragile, and hard-touse. We propose a new fiducial-based design which addresses all three points. The sensor uses an inexpensive webcam and can be fabricated using a consumer-grade 3D printer. Open-source software is used to estimate the 3D pose of the fiducials on the sensor, which is then used to calculate the applied force-torque. A browser-based (installation free) interface demonstrates ease-of-use. The sensor is very light and can be dropped or thrown with little concern. We characterize our prototype in dynamic conditions under compound loading, finding a mean R2of over 0.99 for the Fx, Fy, Mx, and Myaxes, and over 0.87 and 0.90 for the Fzand Mzaxes respectively. The open source design files allow the sensor to be adapted for diverse applications ranging from robot fingers to human-computer interfaces, while the sdesign principle allows for quick changes with minimal technical expertise. This approach promises to bring six-axis force-torque sensing to new applications where the precision, cost, and fragility of traditional strain-gauge based sensors are not appropriate. The open-source sensor design can be viewed at http://sites.google.com/view/fiducialforcesensor.
Authors: Rui Ouyang, Robert Howe
Institution: Harvard University
Language: English
Subfield: Computer Networks and Communications
Field: Computer Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3090480401