A new 3-axis force/moment sensor for an ankle of a humanoid robot

Abstract

For biped walking of a humanoid robot a three-axis force/moment sensor in the ankle, which measures the force FZ and the moments MX, MY simultaneously is necessary. There are many commercially available force/torque six axis sensors. Most of them are relatively big, heavy and expensive. From this reason the mechanical design of a new small size, light weight and low cost three-axis force/moment sensor based on rectangular beams will be described. In the paper the equations to calculate the strains of the beams according to the force or the moment are derived. They are used to design the size of sensing parts of the sensor. The reliability of the derived equations is verified by a finite element method analysis.