Development of Shear Force Estimation Method by Vibration Measurement Using a Piezoelectric Wire Sensor

A sensor that measures the contact force of an object has different specifications depending on the measurement target and the required accuracy. In particular, when measuring the movement of actual robots and equipment and the movement of humans, it is essential not to affect the movement. Therefore, a light and thin sensor is required. In this study, we developed a circular piezoelectric wire sensor to measure vibration of the human body during movement. To estimate the in-shoe shear force, the shear force generated in the shoe was reproduced in the experiment, followed by the measurement of vibration using the circular sensor. Furthermore, a method for estimating the magnitude of the shear force from the vibration features was developed by applying the analysis results of the generated shear force obtained from an existing shear force sensor and the frequency analysis results of the vibration obtained from this sensor to machine learning. From the experimental results, we showed that it is possible to estimate the generated shear force during motion using the proposed circular sensor.