A Novel Six-Axis Force/Torque Sensor for Robotic Applications

This paper presents a novel six-axis force/torque (F/T) sensor for robotic applications that is self-contained, rugged, and inexpensive. Six capacitive sensor cells are adopted to detect three normal and three shear forces. Six sensor cell readings are converted to F/T information via calibrations and transformation. To simplify the manufacturing processes, a sensor design with parallel and orthogonal arrangements of sensing cells is proposed, which achieves the large improvement of the sensitivity. Also, the signal processing is realized with a single printed circuit board and a ground plate, and thus, we make it possible to build a lightweight six-axis F/T sensor with simple manufacturing processes at extremely low cost. The sensor is manufactured and its performances are validated by comparing them with a commercial six-axis F/T sensor.