Design and fabrication of a six-component force/moment sensor

This paper describes the development of a six-component force/moment sensor with the plate-beams which may be used in industry for measuring forces F-x, F-y, F-z and moments M-x, M-y, M-z simultaneously. In order to device the six-component force/moment sensor, the procedures are performed as follows: first, the equations to predict the bending strains on the surfaces of the plate-beams under the forces or the moments are derived, second, the sizes of the sensing elements of the force/moment sensor are determined by using the derived equations, third, the Finite Element Method (FEM) analysis for confirming the strains from the theoretical analysis is performed, next, the attachment locations of the strain gages of each sensor are selected, then, the six-component force/moment sensor is fabricated, and lastly, a characteristic test of the six-component force/moment sensor is performed. It reveals that the rated strains calculated from the derived equations are in agreement with the results from the FEM analysis and the experiments. The interference errors of each sensor are less than 2.0%. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science S.A. All rights reserved.