2013. 10.

07 137215 LE PHAN HUNG

Abstract

Chain of Optoelectronic sensor array Emitter

Deformable layer

Receiver

Optoelectronic couple An external force applied to the deformable layer is transduced into a vertical displacement measured by the optoelectronic couple.
-2-

I. Introduction
Purpose Robots adapt their behavior intelligently To avoid unintended collisions (safe operation around humans).

Method
Scalable and modular artificial skin based on photo-reflectors Force Sensor Resistive An artificial skin based on capacitive technology

Disadvantages
Expensive component Implies a high hysteresis Complex manufacturing process The dimensions and the complexity of the circuit for addressing the sensor elements

A novel artificial skin concept The sensing element (taxel) consists of a couple of infrared Light Emitting Diode (LED) and Photo-Detector (PD) covered by a silicone layer The word taxel derives from the union of the words tactile element.
-3-

II. Sensor Description

Working Principle
Deformable layer made by silicon. Support layer to optimize sensor fullscale and sensitivity. Emitter & Receiver to measure the displacement Two resistors To convert the measured photocu rrent into a voltage signal. To fix the emitted light intensity. A skin module is constituted by n sen sing elements and a microcontroller

a = 71 mm; c = 9 mm;

b = 15 mm; d = 13 mm;

Support layer = 2 mm;

Silicon = 3 mm;

-4-

II. Sensor Description

Working Principle

The sensor skin is obtained connecting m skin modules. The master sends data to the first slave and it receives data from the m-th slave The maximum number of slave depend on the bus capacitance and the transmission rate

-5-

II. Sensor Description

Sensor Prototype
Modularity and Scalability. Low-power consumption. Low-cost and light-weight. Soft interface. Fast response and low number of wires. Easy of manufacturing.

-6-

III. Experiments

7 x 3 Taxels

7 x 4 Taxels

Voltage variations for taxel are sufficiently high and noise-free to be directly digitalized without any amplification and/or filtering stage. -7-

The scalability of the system has been tested by inserting a new slave module into the chain.

III. Experiments
Calibration setup
In order to identify a relationship between the external force applied on the deformable layer and the phototransistor signal variations

-8-

III. Experiments

Evaluation of measurement repeatability for a single taxel

Evaluation of hysteresis for a single taxel

-9-

IV. Conclusions And Future Works

Can be inserted or removed from the chain without any hardware and/or software changes Ensuring an high scalability. Lack of conformability. The number of modules grow, the calibration might take too time

My opinion Measurement method is not efficient. Need method to handle all of the received signal rather than handle 1 signals from several sensors

-10-