Collision avoidance of industrial robot arms using an invisible sensitive skin

Abstract

Collision avoidance of industrial robot arms in varying environment is a challenging task which has been a tough problem for decades. It often requires a large number of sensors and high computational power. Moreover, since the sensors are often mounted on the surface of robot arms, they may affect the appearance of the robot arms and may be vulnerable to damage. This video presents a cost-effective invisible sensitive skin that can cover a large area without utilizing a large number of sensors and it is built inside the robot arm. By using only 5 contactless capacitive sensors and specially designed antennas, collision avoidance of a 6-DOF industrial robot arm is attained.