Design, development, and fabrication of a vibration detecting robotic foot-pad using embedded PVDF strips

This thesis shows the design, fabrication, and early characterization process of a slip-sensing foot-pad made from PVDF strips embedded in a rubber molded structure. What follows suggests a proof-of-concept for a design that can be used to detect vibrations on the edges of a teethed structure. The ability to detect localized vibrations in the embedded PVDF sensors in this foot-pad can be used in future studies to measure the contact-patch area and investigate the relationship between the change in such area and incipient slip. The future iterations of the proposed foot-pad can be used to integrate with current foot-pads worn by legged robots such as MIT Cheetah to enable them to predict slippage. An experimental procedure was used to find the effect of a localized stress on the embedded sensors' data. Three iterations of the foot-pad were designed and fabricated. Furthermore, a custom slippage tester was designed and built for future studies. The experimental results suggested that the effect of triggering on the foot-pad was highly localized since it did not affect neighboring sensors. This behavior can be used to measure changes in the contact-patch area since loss of contact between the ground and foot-pad introduces vibrations on the edges of the pad. Though further data collection and mapping should be conducted for this foot-pad to be able to predict slippage, the experimental results suggest that usage of urethane embedded PVDF sensors can be a viable and promising approach in achieving this goal by detecting the localized vibrations induced by the slip incident.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2016

Author dc:creator

• Abdolrahim Poorheravi, Negin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sangbae Kim.

• Mechanical Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105720

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/105720