Optoelectronic Sensor-based Shape Sensing Approach for Flexible Manipulators

This paper presents a novel two-axis shape sensor based on optical optoelectronic sensors and integrated with a flexible manipulator arm to measure the overall shape of the robotic arm. The disc-shape bio-compatible sensor presented here can be embedded as a sensing system into flexible manipulators and is applicable to the geometry of its structure and to the structure of any other similar multi-segment robotic manipulator. Design and calibration procedures of the device are introduced: experimental results allow defining a sensor matrix for real-time estimation of the pitch and roll of the plate above the sensor and confirms the usefulness of the proposed optical sensing approach.