Development of 6-axis force/moment sensor for an intelligent robot's foot

지능형 로봇 발을 위한 6 축 힘/모멘트센서 개발

This paper describes the development of 6-axis force/moment sensor for an intelligent robot's foot. In order to walk on uneven terrain safely, the foot should perceive the applied forces Fx, Fy, Fz and moments Mx, My, Mz to itself. The applied forces and moments should be measured from a 6-axis force/moment sensor attached to a humanoid robot's foot(ankle). They in the published paper already have some disadvantage in the size of the sensor, the rated output and so on. The rated output of each component sensor (6-axis force/moment sensor) is very important to design the 6-axis force/moment sensor for precision measurement. Therefore, each sensor should be designed to be gotten similar the rated output under each rated load. So, the sensing elements of the 6-axis force/moment sensor should get lots of design variables. Also, the size of 6- axis force/moment sensor is very important for mounting to robot's foot. In this paper, a 6-axis force/moment sensor for perceiving forces and moments in a humanoid robot's foot was developed using many PPBs (parallel plate-beams). The structure of the sensor was newly modeled, and the sensing elements (plate-beams) of the sensor were designed using FEM (Finite Element Method) analysis. Then, the 6-axis force/moment sensor was fabricated by attaching strain-gages on the sensing elements, and the characteristic test of the developed sensor was carried out. The rated outputs from FEM analysis agree well with that from the characteristic test.