Fabric sensory sleeves for soft robot state estimation
Michelle C. Yuen, Henry Tonoyan, Edward L. White, Maria Telleria, Rebecca K. Kramer
Abstract
In this paper, we describe the fabrication and testing of a stretchable fabric sleeve with embedded elastic strain sensors for state reconstruction of a soft robotic joint. The strain sensors are capacitive and composed of graphite-based conductive composite electrodes and a silicone elastomer dielectric. The sensors are screenprinted directly into the fabric sleeve, which contrasts the approach of pre-fabricating sensors and subsequently attaching them to a host. We demonstrate the capabilities of the sensor-embedded fabric sleeve by determining the joint angle and end effector position of a soft pneumatic joint with similar accuracy to a traditional IMU. Furthermore, we show that the sensory sleeve is capable of capturing more complex material states, such as fabric buckling and non-constant curvatures along linkages and joints.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2017_fabricsensorysle,
title = {Fabric sensory sleeves for soft robot state estimation},
author = {Michelle C. Yuen and Henry Tonoyan and Edward L. White and Maria Telleria and Rebecca K. Kramer},
booktitle = {ICRA 2017},
year = {2017}
}