Abstract-A sensor which is designed to measure the bending moments in the x and y directions, the force in the z direction and the torsion moment around the : direction is described. The sensor consists of two opposite electrode patterns with an elastomeric material in between, and electrical contacts to only the arm-side electrode pattern. Upon applying a force, the compliant intermediate will deform, causing a change in the separation and overlap between the electrodes, which results in a change in the capacitance. There are four sensitive capacitance patterns between the two electrodes. By combining the information from these four patterns it is possible to unambiguously distinguish between the three moments. Such a sensor can be used to improve the assembling performance of an industrial robot as the vision system might be obscured by the object to be manipulated at the moment the gripper establishes mechanical contact. The versatility of the sensor is demonstrated using an experiment, where a contour is tracked with constant contact force.

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A binary scaled programmable current source has been designed for use in a non¬ linear A/D converter for smart sensors applications. The non-linear conversion is achieved by using accurate binary-weighted current sources with emitter scaling and analog current switches. The A/D converter implements two programmable current sources, the first is used to determine the exponent, while the second is used to determine the mantissa in a floating point representation number. The current source and the required electronics are implemented using a bipolar process in silicon which makes it compatible with silicon sensors. A special layout has been implemented in the design to compensate for mismatch gradients over the chip.