Semester

Fall

Date of Graduation

2013

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Type

MS

College

Statler College of Engineering and Mineral Resources

Department

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

Committee Chair

Marvin Cheng

Committee Co-Chair

Victor Mucino

Committee Member

Konstantinos Sierros

Abstract

Tactile sensors are one of the major devices that enable robotic systems to interact with the surrounding environment. In particular, modern assistive robotic systems need to carry out many human-like activities. Thus, it is desired to have sensor arrays that can acquire different environmental information just like human skin. In the past two decades, various types of tactile sensor arrays have been developed to acquire different physical properties, such as temperature, force, and geometric shapes. However, though the measurement of a single sensor can be accurate, the planar resolution is limited due to fabrication difficulties. This research aims to propose a mathematical model to describe the behavior of a tactile sensor based on experimental and statistical analyses. Moreover, to develop a versatile algorithm that can be applied to different tactile sensor arrays to enhance the limited resolution. With the proposed algorithm, the resolution can be increased up to twenty times if multiple measurements are available.;To verify if the algorithm can be used for tactile sensor arrays that are used in robotic system, a 16 x 10 force sensing array (FSR) is adopted. The force was first measured by a scanning data acquisition device integrated by a synthesized electronic circuit, DAQ station and an interface developed using MATLAB. The acquired two dimensional measurements were then processed by the Proposed Resolution Enhancement Algorithm (PREA) to enhance the resolution. The proposed algorithm can be used to improve the resolution for single image or multiple measurements. In this study, the developed MATLAB scripts can automatically identify the location of the targeted objects if multiple measurements are recorded. As a result, the resolution of the sensor is increased and it can be used as synthetic skin to identify accurate shapes of objects and applied forces.

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