Application of High-Photoelasticity Polyurethane to Tactile Sensor for Robot Hands

Masahiko Mitsuzuka; Jun Takarada; Ikuo Kawahara; Ryota Morimoto; Zhongkui Wang; Sadao Kawamura; Yoshiro Tajitsu

doi:10.3390/polym14235057

Application of High-Photoelasticity Polyurethane to Tactile Sensor for Robot Hands

Polymers (Basel). 2022 Nov 22;14(23):5057. doi: 10.3390/polym14235057.

Authors

Masahiko Mitsuzuka¹, Jun Takarada², Ikuo Kawahara², Ryota Morimoto², Zhongkui Wang³, Sadao Kawamura⁴, Yoshiro Tajitsu²

Affiliations

¹ Research Organization of Science and Technology, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu 525-8577, Japan.
² Electrical Engineering Department, Graduate School of Science and Engineering, Kansai University, Suita 564-8680, Japan.
³ Cloud Robotics Laboratory, Department of Robotics, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu 525-8577, Japan.
⁴ Ritsumeikan Global Innovation Research Organization, Ritsumeikan University, Kusatsu 525-8577, Japan.

Abstract

We developed a tactile sensor for robot hands that can measure normal force (F_Z) and tangential forces (F_X and F_Y) using photoelasticity. This tactile sensor has three photodiodes and three light-emitting diode (LED) white light sources. The sensor is composed of multiple elastic materials, including a highly photoelastic polyurethane sheet, and the sensor can detect both normal and tangential forces through the deformation, ben sding, twisting, and extension of the elastic materials. The force detection utilizes the light scattering resulting from birefringence.

Keywords: photoelasticity; tactile sensor; tangential force.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the Cabinet Office (CAO) Cross-Ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP), “An intelligent knowledge processing infrastructure, integrating physical and virtual domains” (funding agency: NEDO, project code: P18014).