This paper presents a fiber-optic-based contact sensor for the body contact sensing of a flexible manipulator. The developed sensor is capable of providing both the magnitude of applied force and the contact location. A mathematical model of this sensor is developed. A sensor prototype is created and tested to illustrate the sensing principle of the proposed sensor. Sensor design and the fabrication procedure are presented. The developed sensor has a simple structure and is capable of working in high-electromagnetic interference environments. The sensor's performance has been experimentally evaluated. Test results show that the proposed sensor has an accuracy of 83.50 for the force magnitude measurement and an average error of 10.23 degrees for the contact angle measurement.
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