Design of a Two-Axis Force Sensor for Measuring Arm Force of an Upper-Limb Rehabilitation Robot

Abstract

This paper describes the design of a two-axis force sensor with two step plate beams for measuring forces in an upper-limb rehabilitation robot. The two-axis force sensor is composed of a Fz force sensor and a Ty torque sensor. The Fz force sensor measures the force applied to a patient's arm pushed by a rehabilitation robot and the force of patient's arm. The Ty torque sensor measures the torque generated by a patient's arm motion in an emergency. The structure of sensor is composed of a force transmitting block, two step plate beams and two fixture blocks. The two-axis force sensor was designed using FEM (Finite Element Method), and manufactured using strain-gages. The characteristics test of the two-axis force sensor was carried out. as a test results, the interference error of the two-axis force sensor was less than 1.24%, the repeatability error of each sensor was less than 0.03%, and the non-linearity was less than 0.02%.