Development of a low cost force sensor for wearable robotic systems

This paper proposes a force sensor based on an optical sensor. The proposed sensor has advantages of low cost, ease of design, small size and light weight due to its simple structure. The advantages of the proposed sensor are useful in applications such as wearable robotic systems. The requirement of high capacity is also achieved without difficulty by changing two design variables. Prior to the fabrication of the prototype sensor, simulations for stress and strains analysis are accurately performed to verify that it meets the desired capacity. To demonstrate the performance of the proposed design, experiments were carried out to compare it with a commercial force/torque sensor (Mini45, ATI).