We would like to find out, how well we can use our lightweight arms to measure torques and forces.

We are interested in:

• sensitivity (what is the smallest force that we can detect)
• noise (variance, peak-to-peak)
• accuracy (how much can we trust the measurements)

Of course, force reading depend on:

• magnitude of the force
• direction of the force

We suspect that the force / torque readings also depend on:

• pose of the arm (manipulability ellipsoid)
• stiffness of the arm
• whether or not the hand is mounted or not
• whether the arm is moving or not

We attach some weights to the end-effector and measure the torques that the arm is “seeing”.

For the experiments we record the following data:

• joint angles of the arm (once)
• manipulability ellipsoid (once, one matrix)
• measured force & torque (log)
• measured joint torques (log)
• direction of the force (once)

• Calibration of the arm

• Cord
• Pulley
• Weights