Soft curvature sensors for measuring the rotational angles of mechanical fingers
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Haixiao LIU, Li LI, Zhikang OUYANG, Wei SUN
Soft curvature sensors for measuring the rotational angles of mechanical fingers
© The Author(s) 2020. This article is published with open access at link.springer.com and journal.hep.com.cn
Abstract The design, fabrication, and testing of soft sensors that measure elastomer curvature and mechanical finger bending are described in this study. The base of the soft sensors is polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), which is a translucent elastomer. The main body of the soft sensors consists of three layers of silicone rubber plate, and the sensing element is a microchannel filled with galliumindium-tin (Ga-In-Sn) alloy, which is embedded in the elastomer. First, the working principle of soft sensors is investigated, and their structure is designed. Second, the relationship between curvature and resistance is determined. Third, several sensors with different specifications are built in accordance with the structural design. Experiments show that the sensors exhibit high accuracy when the curvature changes within a certain range. Lastly, the soft sensors are applied to the measurement of mechanical finger bending. Experiments show that soft curvature sensors can effectively reflect mechanical finger bending and can be used to measure the bending of mechanical fingers with high sensitivity within a certain working range. Keywords soft sensor, Ga-In-Sn alloy, strain sensing, curvature sensing, mechanical finger bending
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Introduction
Flexible electronic devices have developed rapidly in recent years [1–3]. As an important type of flexible electronic devices, soft sensors, such as soft tactile [4–6] and soft curvature sensors, have been developed consistently by researchers. Soft sensors have many advantages over rigid ones. Soft sensors have high adaptability, long Received January 16, 2020; accepted June 8, 2020
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Haixiao LIU, Li LI ( ), Zhikang OUYANG, Wei SUN School of Mechatronic Engineering and Automation, Shanghai University, Shanghai 200444, China E-mail: [email protected]
service life, and low cost. Moreover, they have many structural forms and can be arranged flexibly in accordance with the site environment [7]. As a type of soft sensor, soft curvature sensors can be used to detect the bending of human joints, such as hands, elbows, shoulders, and even small muscle vibration. These sensors sense human action information and transform the obtained information into electrical signals in accordance with certain rules, thus providing original data for subsequent information processing and information fusion analysis. Currently, soft curvature sensors are used as the core devices of electronic skin [8–10], wearable electronic equipment [11–13], and flexible human–computer interaction equipment [14]. The performance of typical soft curvature sensors is determined by three factors, namely, conductors, substrates, and distributions of functional structures. The flexible sensing unit converts angles into physical signals that can be directly measured, such as voltage, resis
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