Development of a Joint Torque Sensor Fully Integrated with an Actuator

This paper suggests the new type of a joint torque sensor which is attached at each joint of a manipulator for making compliance. Previous six axis force/torque sensors are high cost and installed end-effector of the manipulator. However, torque on links of previous an end-effector cannot be measured. We design a joint torque sensor that can be fully integrated with an actuator in order to measure applying torque of the manipulator. The sensor system is designed through the structural analysis. The proposed joint torque sensors are installed to the 6 DOF manipulator of a mobile robot for hazardous works and we implemented experiments of measuring applied torque to the manipulator. By the experiment, we proved that the proposed low-cost joint torque sensor gives acceptable performance when we control a manipulator.