Development of Flexible Displacement Sensor Using Ultrasonic Sensor for Flexible Pneumatic Robot Arm

In our previous study, the flexible robot arm using the flexible pneumatic cylinders for human wrist rehabilitation was proposed and tested. The low-cost bilateral control system using two embedded controller and tested robot arm was also proposed and tested. In this paper, to miniaturize the displacement measuring system and reduce its cost, the flexible and compact displacement sensor using the ultrasonic sensor is proposed. The measuring characteristics of the tested sensor are investigated. As a result, the flexible displacement sensor with the resolution of about 0.1mm and the measuring sampling period of about 4ms could be realized.