Invention Grant
- Patent Title: Artificial skin and elastic strain sensor
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Application No.: US14346853Application Date: 2012-09-24
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Publication No.: US09841331B2Publication Date: 2017-12-12
- Inventor: Robert J. Wood , Yong-Lae Park , Carmel S. Majidi , Bor-rong Chen , Leia Stirling , Conor James Walsh , Radhika Nagpal , Diana Young , Yigit Menguc
- Applicant: PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
- Applicant Address: US MA Cambridge
- Assignee: President and Fellows of Harvard College
- Current Assignee: President and Fellows of Harvard College
- Current Assignee Address: US MA Cambridge
- Agency: Nixon Peabody LLP
- Agent David S. Resnick; David F. Crosby
- International Application: PCT/US2012/056903 WO 20120924
- International Announcement: WO2013/044226 WO 20130328
- Main IPC: G01L1/22
- IPC: G01L1/22 ; B25J13/08 ; G06F3/01 ; A61B5/103 ; A61B5/11 ; A61F2/10 ; A43B13/20 ; A43B23/02 ; A61B5/00

Abstract:
An elastic strain sensor can be incorporated into an artificial skin that can sense flexing by the underlying support structure of the skin to detect and track motion of the support structure. The uni-directional elastic strain sensor can be formed by filling two or more channels in an elastic substrate material with a conductive liquid. At the ends of the channels, a loop port connects the channels to form a serpentine channel. The channels extend along the direction of strain and the loop portions have sufficiently large cross-sectional area in the direction transverse to the direction of strain that the sensor is unidirectional. The resistance is measured at the ends of the serpentine channel and can be used to determine the strain on the sensor. Additional channels can be added to increase the sensitivity of the sensor. The sensors can be stacked on top of each other to increase the sensitivity of the sensor. In other embodiments, two sensors oriented in different directions can be stacked on top of each other and bonded together to form a bidirectional sensor. A third sensor formed by in the shape of a spiral or concentric rings can be stacked on top and used to sense contact or pressure, forming a three dimensional sensor. The three dimensional sensor can be incorporated into an artificial skin to provide advanced sensing.
Public/Granted literature
- US20140238153A1 ARTIFICIAL SKIN AND ELASTIC STRAIN SENSOR Public/Granted day:2014-08-28
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