A Model-Based Sensor Fusion Approach for Force and Shape Estimation in Soft Robotics

In this letter, we address the challenge of sensor fusion in Soft Robotics for estimating forces and deformations. In the context of intrinsic sensing, we propose the use of soft capacitive sensing to find a contact’s location, and the use of pneumatic sensing to estimate the force intensity and the deformation. Using a FEM-based numerical approach, we integrate both sensing streams and model two ...