This National Science Foundation (NSF) Engineering Program (CFDA 47.041) Project Grant award to Wesleyan University in the amount of $199,956 will fund research to develop capacitive knitted pressure sensors and directionally selective knitted shear strain sensors for assistive robot skins. The goal is to create a computational framework to automatically generate sensor patterns oriented in arbitrary directions to provide rich information about contacts experienced by robots interacting with people. This research aims to increase the safety and comfort of users by enabling robots with full-body sensitivity to detect unexpected contacts and respond appropriately. The project will integrate the sensors into a sleeve for an existing assistive robot arm used for tasks like bed-bathing and limb repositioning, and evaluate the sensor performance with known force profiles. The award period is from July 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026.
Generated 3/4/25, 6:36 AM