Implementation of Force Sensor with Multi Strain Gauges for Enhancing Accuracy and Precision

Y. C. Kim, Y. S. Ihn, H. R. Choi, S. M. Lee, and J. C. Koo

Abstract A force sensor using strain gauges is widely used in many mechanical measuring systems. A method of measuring force and contact point using two gauges is available although it rather limited to extension of micro scale measurement. In order to overcome this limitation and to maximize a precision of the strain gauge sensor, sensor structure was optimized. Also, we used Kalman ltering for increasing an accuracy. It signicantly increase the signal to noise ratio and stability of the sensor. This force sensor using strain gauges will be applied to diverse elds such as inspecting a micro system or manipulating small devices.

I. INTRODUCTION The foundation of robotic industrial automation is based on development of high performance actuators and sensors. The need for sensors with high performance, small size, high precision, and low price has increased with the development of high performance robots with sophisticated movement(e.g., humanoid) and the precision of semiconductor and display equipment. It is essential that force sensors can be tactile to manipulate fragile or transformable objects precisely, and protect people and industrial equipment. F. Beyeler et al. studied a micro-gripper with integrated force sensor having maximum resolution of 70nN using piezoelectric element, and K. Kim et al. studied a micro-electromechanical system(MEMS)-based capacitive force sensor having resolution of 33.2 nN . [1], [2]. In these case, the developed sensor has a very sophisticated level of resolution; however, its drawback is high cost. Menciassi et al. studied micro-gripper using force sensors with a resolution of 1mN using semiconductor strain gauges [3]. In this case, there is a limit of resolution due to the inuence from the outside such as noise and temperature. However, because of its reasonable price, it is widely used as a load cell or 6-axis F/T sensor. Some researchers have studied development of sensors using strain gauges in various elds. Arai et al. made a micro gripper for precise manipulation [4]. His integrated piezo-resistive force sensor was fabricated by micro-machining techniques. The resolution of this force sensor was about 100 N . Bicchi et al. studied the contact sensing problem [5]. Methods of looking for contact position and evaluating the force and moment at the interface had been mentioned in their research. The optimal position problem had been considered for a onedimensional(1-D) model with one and two strain gauges
Y. C. Kim, Y. S. Ihn, H. R. Choi, and J. C. Koo are with School of Mechanical Engineering, Sungkyunkwan University, Suwon, Korea S. M. Lee is with Division of Applied Robot Technology, Korea Institute of Industrial Technology, Ansan, Korea All correspondences are to be sent to Prof. Koo at jckoo@skku.edu

[6], [7]. These studies mainly focused on characteristic of strain gauges in order to improve accuracy and precision of the sensor. In contrast, we principally focused on postprocessing by ltering, and on the structure of the sensor. Resolution was increased using optimization of the sensor structure based on the contact sensing problem. Precision and accuracy was improved by applying the Kalman ltering process to an experimental result. In this study, we developed a theoretical approach to force measurement method and the Kalman ltering process as described in Section 2. In Section 3, the detailed optimization procedure of the force sensor structure and implementation of measurement hardware system are decribed, and the performance of the force sensor is estimated. In Section 4, we describe our experimental results. In Section 5, we give our conclusions and describe future work. II. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND A. Measuring Force Our goal is to develop a force sensor using strain gauges based on a calibration process between two strain values to measure force value. Strain gauges 1,2 and 3 are attached to a sensor structure made copper plate at xed point x1 ,x2 and x3 . When sensor structure is deformed by contacting other objects, strain value is measured through a strain gauge amplier. Because we know strain the value, the position of each gauge, and the material properties of the copper plate, force data is calculated using the following equations: 1 = 2 = 3 = F1 = F2 = h My = F (x x1 ) EI 2EI My h = F (x x2 ) EI 2EI My h = F (x x3 ) EI 2EI (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

bh2 (E1 1 E2 2 ) 6(x2 x1 ) bh2 (E1 1 E3 3 ) 6(x3 x1 )

It has been located each at 1 , 2 and 3 on optimal position from xed section in order to get more sensitivity information. Before it measures a force, the strain values at each position can be calculated using equation (1),(2) and (3) . These values were transformed using equation (4) and (5). We estimated fused value through measured signal F1 ,

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F2 for more credible result. (h : thickness of beam, I : the moment of inertia, E : the modulus of elasticity, xn : the position attached strain gauge from xed section) B. Kalman Filtering A Kalman lter is an efcient innite impulse response lter, and is used to estimate the state of a dynamic system using the observation values of error covariance through an innite cycle loop. The algorithm has several advantages. First, it is simple because it is a recursive lter that estimates the state from a series of noise measurements. Second, astringency is distinguished more effectively than other lters, and ltering can be processed in the time domain. Third, it can be applied to diverse system models because the algorithm is considered observation process with variables. However, the Kalman lter has a weak point in that requires a large quantity of calculations compared to a least mean square(LMS) lter or recursive least square(RLS) lter. A step for increasing sensor resolution is required to ltering process to eliminate noise from measured original data. The noises are caused by a characteristic of the sensor or by analog-to-digital converting(ADC)process(these noises are called measurement noise). Another noise,called process noise, is caused by inaccuracy of the system model due to a limitation that considering a large number of variables is impossible(therefore, the model is no complete). Therefore, the difference between predictions of the state of these part is considered as noise. The noises are assumed to be a gaussian model that is possible to express the characteristics of noise by using value of mean and variance. The Kalman ltering process is shown in Fig.1. And gure 2 show an algorithm of the Kalman ltering process using MATLAB/SIMULINK(The MathWorks, Inc.). Figure 3 shows a simple model of our sensor, and the theoretical model is expressed as follows:
Fig. 2.

Fig. 1.

Kalman Filtering Process

Kalman Filter algorithm (MATLAB/SIMULINK)

am Fk

=
k

K 2

0 T2 0

1 m

1 1

am Fk am Fk

+
k 1

1 m

Fs + w k

yk =

+ vk
k

(6)

III. SENSOR AND ALGORITHM A. Design of Sensor A strain gauge is a device used to measure the deformation of an object. Foil strain gauges are used in many situations, but this is not enough to measure small forces. For measurements of small strain, semiconductor gauges, so called piezoresistors, are often preferred over foil gauges. A semiconductor gauge usually has a larger gauge factor than a foil gauge. Semiconductor gauges tend to be more sensitive to temperature changes,are more fragile than foil gauges, and result in much larger output for a given stress. Due to

Fig. 3.

System modeling

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TABLE I T HE STRAIN VALUES FOR DIFFERENT TYPES OF NOTCHES Model No-notch V-notch Rectangular-notch Semicircle-notch Strain value (104 ) 0.2367 0.3687 0.5741 0.4268

these properties, they tend to be used in miniature sensor designs. To increase the sensitivity of a strain gauge sensor, efcient design of the sensor structure have to required on gauge attachment points. First design of the structure made from steel was very simple shaped but this tip can relatively operate large contact force without considering optimized gauges position. But next improved sensor made from copper was changed structure to get some sensitive information. We were tried to analysis and test among changing feasible materials(e.g., stainless, aluminum, copper) then the copper is so good in the result of analysis on equal applied force. And structure is designed that could minimize the effect on errors caused inner and outer environment and also could maximize the sensitivity of sensor. The beam is made of thin and exible material that can easily bend even under a weak force. Therefore, we designed an efcient beam structure that used a notch formation at gauge attachment points. It would be designed the xed plate and notch of sensor beam. The xed plate could minimize a moving of sensor beam and notch of sensor beam has to concentrate a stress form applied force on optimized position. We considered three type of the notch: V-shaped, rectangular, and semicircular. These three models were veried using FE Analysis. According to the strain values shown in Table I, the rectangular notch had better than it about 1.5 times. Figure 4 shows the nal model used this study.

or damage to the gauges, and has electromagnetic shielding and grounding to reduce noise. The size of the new model was 85mm20mm15mm (length width height), and the size of the inner beam part with the semiconductor strain gauges was 60mm12mm4mm (length width height). The tip was made from tungsten,used enhancing strain value by increasing moment, with a diameter 0.1mm and length 25mm. Each strain gauge was located at optimal position from a xed section for greater sensitivity. But the design of the outer cover, at third step, was modied to enlarge the inner space that could be allowed movement of the sensor structure and tip. B. System Setup Figure 5 shows our experimental setup. To minimize vibration by excitation transmitted from the oor, a vibration isolation table was used. To eliminate noise from the environment (e.g. air ow, electric waves, and temperature), we used a copper cover for shielding and to prevent plastic deformation of the sensor structure. The experimental procedure is following some steps. First step, the sensor tip contact to xed object or specimen measured weight by other device. Second, the strain value generated by the deformation of the sensor structure was switched to a force signal using calibration equation. To lter the signal from noise, two sensor signals were optimized by the Kalman ltering process. For this process, we used LABVIEW software(National Instrument) and MATLAB/SIMULINK for the algorithm in post-processing.

Fig. 5.

Experiment System

IV. E XPERIMENTAL R ESULT Figure 6 (left) shows measuring force value during 60 seconds, and the loading force over 2040s without ltering. The signal shown is not clear due to noise. The noise causes lower resolution, and thus it was impossible to measure force at the micro-level. To overcome this limitation, a ltering process is required. At each 20s and 40s interval, the impulse of the moment occurred due to momentary contact with the object. First, we analyzed the characteristic frequency of the noise through fast Fourier transform (FFT) analysis, and observed the peak point of the noise at a frequency

Fig. 4.

Design of the sensor

Design of modeling, at second step, was considered that the xed plates are attached a rubber for hold harder and the cover prevents plastic deformation of the copper plate

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of 25 Hz. Therefore, we were simply the convergence of the results using low pass ltering (LPF) to compare with the fusion from the Kalman ltering. Figure 6 (right) is a result from Kalman ltering. LPF has a cut-off frequency limitation, and does not have a fast response time at the bandwidth of very low level frequencies. However, the results from Kalman ltering showed that there was no loss of data, and had a rapid response time. Therefore, we were able to verify the results, as shown in Fig. 6, that the noise was effectively eliminated and the sensor had a high resolution. To compare the accuracy of the two methods, we conducted a quantitative analysis thorough repeated experiments. The gure 7 show that the results from Kalman ltering have more high accuracy.

0.11mV /N . Force sensors using strain gauges are not widely used in the eld of micro measurement despite having a cost advantage. However, fabricated sensor in this study is possible applying for the micro system, we expect that the strain gauge sensor will be widely applied in areas such as industrial robots and sensors/actuators. VI. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This research is nancially supported by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy(MKE) and Korea Institute for Advancement in Technology (KIAT) through the Workforce Development Program in Strategic Technology, and by the Ministry of Knowledge Economy(MKE) and Korea Evaluation Institute of Industrial Technology(KEIT) through the Industrial Technology Development Projects. R EFERENCES
[1] Flex Beyeler, Adrian Neild, Stefano Oberti, Dominik J. Bell, Yu Sun, Jurg Dual, and Bradley J. Nelson, Monolithically Fabricated Microgripper With Integrated Force Sensor for Manipulating Microobjects and Biological Cells Aligned in an Ultrasonic Field, Journal of Microelectromechanical Systems, Vol. 16, No. 1, February 2007 [2] K. Kim, J. Cheng, Q. Liu, X. Y. Wu, and Y. Sun, MEMS Capacitive Force Sensor For Micro-Scale Compression Testing of Biomaterials, Proc. of the 21th, IEEE MEMS 2008, pp. 888-891, January 2008. [3] A. Menciassi, A. Eisinberg, M. C. Carrozza, and P. Dario, Force sensing microinstrument for measuring tissue properties and pulse in microsurgery, IEEE/ASME Transactions on Mechatronics, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 10-17 , March 2003. [4] F. Arai, D. Andou, Y. Nonoda, T. Fukuda, H. Iwata, and K. Itoigawa, Micro endeffector with micro pyramids and integrated piezoresistive force sensor, Proc. of the IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and System, vol. 2, pp. 842-849, November 1996. [5] E. Winder, Y. Shen, N. Xi, W. Sheng, U. C. Wejiniya, and A. Pomeroy, Optimal Control Based Active Force Sensing System for Micromanipulation, Proc. IEEE/ASME Int. Conf. Advanced Intelligent Mechatronics, pp. 402-407, 2005. [6] A. Bicchi, J. K. Salisbury, and D. L. Brock, Contact sensing from force measurements, International Journal of Robotics Research, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 249-262, June 1993. [7] A. Bicchi, A. Caiti and D. Prattichizzo, Optimal design of dynamic multi-axis force/torque sensor, Proceedings of the 38th , Conference on Decision and Control, vol. 3, pp. 29812986, Phoenix, Arizona USA, December 1999 [8] A. Bicchi, A. Caiti, and D. Prattichizzo, Dynamic force/torque sensors: theory and experiments, Proc. of the 8th International Conference on Advanced Robotics, pp. 727-732, July 1997. [9] R. E. Kalman, A New Approach to Linear Filtering and Prediction Problems, Transactions of the ASME, vol. 85(Series D), pp. 35-45, 1960

Fig. 6.

Original Data(Left) and Kalman Filtering Data(Right)

Fig. 7.

Comparison Results by KF and LPF

V. CONCLUSIONS A. Conclusions In this study, we proposed two methods for increasing a sensitivity of the force sensor, one is the Kalman ltering process. Through the ltering, we obtained reliable data and effectively eliminated noise. Another method is a mechanical design for optimizing a structure shape. We optimized the sensor structure for enhancing a sensitivity using a notch to concentrate strain, well-exible material for maximizing a deformation, and a rigid tip for additional moment force. Therefore, we acquired precise measurable micro-level data and obtained high-resolution data. Using this two methods, we veried that fabricated sensor has a sensitivity of about

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