Capacitance-based proximity sensor for whole arm obstacle avoidance

摘要

This paper discusses an application of capacitive sensors for detecting incipient collisions during robot motion in unknown or partially modeled environments. Forty-five sensors capable of detecting obstacles up to 330 mm (13 in.) away were distributed over the surface of a PUMA 560 robot arm. Each sensor consisted of a 4 mm thick, 37 mm diameter rings around 21 mm diameter disks. These sensors can detect both conductive and non-conductive obstacles of arbitrary color and shape. The sensor hardware is reliable and inexpensive, and it may be fabricated using flexible printed circuit boards to provide whole-arm and joint protection for any robot or manipulator. Simple collision avoidance control algorithms that perturb the joint commands from a spaceball to avoid collisions have been implemented on the PUMA 560 robot.