Basic characteristics analysis of tuning fork structured piezoelectric vibration sensor and application for robot control

Recently, industrial robots have engaged in various works. In the near future, robots will be required to work out some difficult assemblies instead of human. Even though high sensitivity of force sensor is needed for difficult assemblies, it is inferior to that of human. Therefore, a force sensor should be developed so that sensitivity can catch up with that of human. In conventional research, some researches concerned with force sensors are conducted. However, they do not have both wide range and high durability. In this paper, we propose a tuning fork structured piezoelectric vibration sensor. It is possible to realize both of high sensitivity and high durability due to multi vibration mode. Through the FEM results, we developed prototype sensor which has two feasible vibration modes. And it applied for robot control in order to confirm the availability.