Development of a single-joint optical torque sensor with one body structure

Abstract

This paper proposes a single-joint optical torque sensor with one body structure. Conventional optical torque sensors consist of three parts, two plates and an elastic structure. They have slightly slipping problem between plates and elastic structure due to the manufacturing tolerance. Since the order of measurement range of optical sensor is about ten micrometers, the slipping problem causes large measurement error, especially in the case of vibrational or high speed plant. This problem does not occur in the proposed design due to the one body structure. The proposed sensor has advantage of low cost, light weight, and small size. And it is easy to design and manufacture. Simulation works that analysis of stress and strain are performed accurately. To demonstrate the performance of proposed sensor, experiments were implemented to compare with a commercial force/torque sensor (ATI Mini45). © ICROS 2011.