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Highly Sensitive Polymer/Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Based Pressure and Strain Sensors for Robotic Applications

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New Trends in Robot Control

Part of the book series: Studies in Systems, Decision and Control ((SSDC,volume 270))

Abstract

In the last decades, significant advances have been reached in the robotic field by the development and implementation of novel tactile sensors for robot hand and body attached sensors, in order to achieve high robot performance. Because of the unique and fascinating properties of polymer/carbon nanotubes (CNTs) nanocomposites, they were chosen for the design of highly sensitive and stable tactile sensors to detect pressure and strain. In this chapter we propose two sensor structures for robotic applications. Poly-Dimethylsiloxane/Multiwalled carbon nanotubes (MWCNTs) soft pressure sensors were prepared using solution processing method and molded in different shapes depending on the application requirements. The developed pressure sensors show promising piezocapacitive performance, very high sensitivity of 45%/N at low forces of 0–1 N and a wide pressure sensing a range of 0.5 Pa–570 kPa. These properties are essential for robotic applications like touch sensing, grasping and gait analysis. In the other part, conductive thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)/MWCNTs filaments strain sensors were firstly made using an extrusion process. The sensors were subjected to strain loads. The results demonstrate excellent piezoresistive responses a gauge factor around 26 and stretchability more than 50% that was suitable for measuring finger bending.

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Acknowledgements

The research work is carried out under the “Landesinnovationsstipendium (100284169)”, funded by the Sachsische Aufbaubank (SAB) and the European Social Fund (ESF). In addition, a part of this work was funded by the Brazilian CSF (Ciencia sem Fronteiras) program from CAPES/CNPq under the contract number 207319/2014-6. We thank Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ulrike Thomas, Chair of Robotics and Human Machine Interaction for providing facilities to analysis the gait in humanoid robots.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology, Technische Universität Chemnitz, 09126, Chemnitz, Germany

    Rajarajan Ramalingame, Ayda Bouhamed, Dhivakar Rajendran, Renato da Veiga Torres, Zheng Hu & Olfa Kanoun

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  1. Rajarajan Ramalingame
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  2. Ayda Bouhamed
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  3. Dhivakar Rajendran
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  4. Renato da Veiga Torres
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  5. Zheng Hu
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  6. Olfa Kanoun
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Correspondence to Rajarajan Ramalingame .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Sultan Qaboos University, Al Khoudh, Oman

    Jawhar Ghommam

  2. National School of Engineers of Sfax, University of Sfax, Sfax, Tunisia

    Nabil Derbel

  3. Department of Engineering Design and Mathematics, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

    Quanmin Zhu

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Ramalingame, R., Bouhamed, A., Rajendran, D., da Veiga Torres, R., Hu, Z., Kanoun, O. (2020). Highly Sensitive Polymer/Multiwalled Carbon Nanotubes Based Pressure and Strain Sensors for Robotic Applications. In: Ghommam, J., Derbel, N., Zhu, Q. (eds) New Trends in Robot Control. Studies in Systems, Decision and Control, vol 270. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1819-5_19

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