Patent abstracts

Patent abstracts

Title: Flexible 3D force-touch sensorApplicant: Hefei Inst of Intelligent Mach (CN)Patent number: CN1796954Publication date: 5 July 2006

The invention discloses a flexible 3D touch sensor, comprising pressure sensitive resistors and a processing circuit connected with the pressure sensitive resistors and the flexible 3D touch sensor is composed of supporting elastic substrate, 3D sensitive array, flexible fillings, flexible circuit board and elastic protective layer and is a structurally compact 3D force sensing component; where the elastic substrate, fixable fillings and elastic protective layer are all made of resin material; the pressure sensitive resistors distributed on an elastic strain film are sensitive to the forces Fx, Fy and Fz in the X, Y and Z directions, respectively; the 3D force sensitive array is made of monocrystalline silicon material by MEMS process technique. The force sensor can reliably adhere to various curves, realizing 3D force detection and widely applied to the robot technique

Title: Hand force feedback and sensing systemApplicant: Univ Rutgers (US)Patent number: US7138976Publication date: 21 November 2006The present invention relates to a force feedback and sensing system for a hand in which an actuator system and sensing system is coupled to a palm base attached to the hand or a glove. The actuator system includes double acting actuators which provide force feedback against digits of the hand to simulate a real experience a user would have if directly manipulating a real object. The actuators are rotatably mounted to the palm base through a two degrees of freedom rotation joint.

Title: On-board vehicle seat capacitive force sensing device and methodApplicant: Loadstar Sensors Inc.Patent number: US2006267321Publication date: 30 November 2006

An on-board vehicle seat capacitance force sensing apparatus/method is disclosed. In one embodiment, an apparatus includes capacitive sensors mounted between a base structure of a seat in a vehicle and rails of the seat. Each of the capacitive sensors includes a capacitor having an upper conductive surface and a lower conductive surface substantially parallel to the upper conductive surface, a housing with a cover plate to encompass the capacitor, and a sensor in the housing to generate a measurement based on a change in a distance between the upper conductive surface and the lower conductive surface when the cover plate is deflected by a force applied on the cover plate. The apparatus also includes an airbag associated with the seat to deploy based on a weight of an occupant of the seat obtained by aggregating the measurement.

Title: Force sensorApplicant: Honda Motor Co Ltd (JP)Patent number: EP1739401Publication date: 3 January 2007

A force sensor comprises a force sensor chip, and a buffering device for dampening and applying incoming external force (F1) to the force sensor chip. The buffering device comprises an input portion to which external force is input, a sensor mount for fixing the force sensor chip to the exterior, a dampening mechanism for dampening external force, and a transmission portion for transmitting the dampened external force to the active sensing portion.

Title: Method and system for real-time non- destructive testing of projection welds and system for implementing such a method comprising force sensor means and displacement sensor meansApplicant: ALS Technology BVPatent number: AU2004320069Publication date: 8 December 2005The present invention generally relates to a method for manufacturing a projection weld connection between at least two parts (2, 3) of a workpiece, whereby said workpiece remains blemish free, whereby said method is characterized by the fact that it comprises automated real-time verification of the quality of the individual weld, with out the use of destructive testing. The invention also relates to a system (1, 4) implementing said method comprising, among other features, force sensor means and displacement sensor means.

Title: Grip strength with tactile feedback for robotic surgeryApplicant: Corp of Delaware A (US)Patent number: US2006030840Publication date: 9 February 2006

Surgical robots and other telepresence systems have enhanced grip actuation for manipulating tissues and objects with small sizes. A master/slave system is used in which an error signal or gain is artificially altered when grip members are near a closed configuration.

Jessica Mytum-Smithson