Six Degree of Freedom Force/Torque Sensor

The use of robots and manipulators in many kind of applications, such as scientific, medical or industrial ones, requires efficient multi-component force sensing schemes to control the force exerted by the robot end-effector on a human or an object. A multiaxis force sensor can be used to measure the contact force as accurately as possible, and to feed it back to the command signal so that the robot can achieve the pre-specified contact force. As the commercial force sensors are complex and expensive, the goal of this work is to make a multiaxis force sensor that could rThis work describes the design, development and calibration of a complete six?degree-of-freedom force and torque sensor. Compared to commercial sensors, this design has the advantage of simplicity and low cost. The sensor was machined from aluminium, and sensed by an array of commercial low-cost strain gauges. As a sensor, it could be applied in multi-DOF industrial, scientific and medical robotic systems, for instance