Characterization of a Jamming Transition Sensor Using Mixed Powders

Abstract

In Japan, robotic automation has been introduced to solve the labor shortage, and universal gripper with tactile sensing is one of the automation interests.Universal Vacuum Hand(hereinafter, UVH) has been developed as the universal hand with sensing which the resistance of conductive powder changes with density. In the preliminary study, UVH with mixed powder of the conductive and non-conductive ones are effective for measuring the force applied to the sensor, but the noise effect was cause the evaluation error. In this study, we improve the circuit using the four-terminal method in order to measure the resistance value accurately. Furthermore, we also evaluate whether the jamming transition has the effect to the resistance depends on vacuum pressure.