In this paper, we introduce a sensor designed for integration in robot fingers, where it can provide information on the displacements induced by external contact. Our sensor uses LEDs to sense the displacement between two plates connected by a transparent elastomer; when a force is applied to the finger, the elastomer displaces and the LED signals change. We show that using LEDs as both light emitters an receivers in this context provides high sensitivity, allowing such an emitter and receiver pairs to detect very small displacements. We characterize the standalone performance of the sensor by testing the ability of a supervised learning model to predict complete force and torque data from its raw signals, and obtain a mean error between 0.05 and 0.07 N across the three directions of force applied to the finger. Our method allows for finger-size packaging with no amplification electronics, low cost manufacturing, easy integration into a complete hand, and high overload shear forces and bending torques, suggesting future applicability to complete manipulation tasks.

翻译：本文介绍了一种专为集成于机器人手指而设计的传感器，该传感器能够提供由外部接触引发的位移信息。我们的传感器采用LED来感知由透明弹性体连接的两块板之间的位移；当手指受到外力作用时，弹性体发生位移，LED信号随之改变。研究表明，在此应用场景中将LED同时用作光源发射器与接收器可实现高灵敏度，使得此类发射-接收器对能够检测极其微小的位移。我们通过监督学习模型从其原始信号预测完整力与扭矩数据的能力来表征传感器的独立性能，在施加于手指的三个力方向上获得的平均误差介于0.05至0.07 N之间。该方法可实现手指尺寸的封装，无需放大电路，制造成本低廉，易于集成至完整手部系统，并能承受高过载剪切力与弯曲扭矩，为未来应用于完整操作任务提供了可能。