Design of a New Type Six-Axis Force Sensor

A new type of six-axis full shearing strain force sensor has been developed. It uses strain gauge as sensing element for the detection of force. The elastic body is a thin cylinder on which four holes are opened evenly in two levels. There are six Wheatstone bridges on the beams to detect the force in six directions. The sensor was designed from the results of finite element method (FEM) simulation. As indicated by the calculations and experiments, this sensor is not only of high sensitivity and adequate rigidity in the six directions, but also of fairly small cross sensitivities and low hysteresis.