Soft Bionic Sensors and Actuators

Abstract

Before considering the creation of novel soft bionic sensors and actuators, it is highly recommended to consult other fields such as material science to consider existing knowledge on soft and smart concepts. [...]one of the challenges in soft bionic sensors and actuators is the interdisciplinary collaboration among other engineering fields. [...]they first determined the optimum location of sensor embedment on the actuator based on the calibration map obtained from actuator characterization, and developed a control strategy for the gripper to find the best position to grip the object based on the estimated states. The motorized robotic arm system offers adjustable resistance to simulate different levels of muscle stiffness in spasticity, and the sensors on the robot provide ground-truth measurements of angular displacement and force applied during flexion and extension maneuvers. After processing through the neural network, the Pearson correlation coefficients between the processed signals and the ground truth are above 0.92, demonstrating successful signal calibration and noise mitigation.