Mechanical Design of a Low-Impedance 6-Degree-of-Freedom Displacement Sensor for Intuitive Physical Human–Robot Interaction

This paper presents the mechanical design of a six-degree-of-freedom low-impedance displacement sensor. The sensor is mounted around a link of a serial robot and used as an interface for physical human–robot interaction. The motivation for the use of a low-impedance sensor is first discussed. The mechanical design of each of the elastic components of the sensor is then presented. The kinematic architecture of the mechanism is introduced, and the inverse and forward kinematic problems are solved. The kinematic sensitivity is then used to characterize the accuracy of the mechanism. Finally, the design of a prototype is presented and experimental results are provided.