Work

Wavelength-Selective Parallel Sensing of Soft Optical Fibers for Wearable Applications

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Soft optical sensors are an exciting sensing technology for capturing the deformation of soft structures as they can easily fabricated and integrated. However, one key challenge is their scalability, as each fiber requires a sensor, and to achieve large area, or multi-fiber sensing requires many optical sensors. We propose parallelizing optical waveguides with color LEDs so that each fiber transmits a distinct wavelength, requiring only one color sensor to detect multiple fibers. By creating a localized response through patterning of the fibers, and using different light wavelengths we show how 5 parallel optical fibers can be combined, and their deformation reconstructed. We integrate our parallel sensing approach into a wearable glove to show the scalability of this approach, showing how it can be used to detect the finger angle during multi-finger piano playing.

Source: IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters

DOI: 10.1109/lra.2025.3621970

Authors: Haewon Jeong, Tian Wang, Carlo Renzo Opreni, Pai Zheng, Josie Hughes

Institutions: École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Language: English

Topic: Advanced Sensor and Energy Harvesting Materials

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funder: Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung

Award: Rapid Deployment of Compliant, Sensorized Anthropomorphic Robot Hands