Lanyang Hao , Ling Weng , Xiaopeng Ji , Xinpei Huang , Shixin Wang , Han Zhang , Zipeng Yang
{"title":"Design of an improved visual-tactile sensor for robotic grasping","authors":"Lanyang Hao , Ling Weng , Xiaopeng Ji , Xinpei Huang , Shixin Wang , Han Zhang , Zipeng Yang","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117172","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117172","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>In view of the complex manufacturing process, difficulty in producing reflective films, and uneven illumination of existing visual-tactile sensors, this study designed a novel visual-tactile sensor. By means of an improved double-layer reflective film structure and an optimized optical system, the service life of the sensor has been significantly enhanced. Based on the Beer-Lambert law, a direct transmission light model was established to describe the exponential attenuation relationship between the light intensity and the pressing depth in a translucent elastic body. A double-layer reflective coating process was proposed, which involves sequentially coating the surface of a silicone elastomer with a first reflective layer of copper powder and a second reflective layer of a copper powder-silicone mixture. This process significantly improves the durability and service life of the sensor while maintaining high-resolution tactile sensing capabilities. An optical system optimization scheme was designed that included a uniform film, a PDMS layer, and an isolation ring. This scheme reduced the variance in image grayscale distribution by 46.5 % and the standard deviation in local contrast by 21.5 %, effectively improving lighting uniformity. The experimental results show that the reconstruction accuracy of the designed sensor reached within 100 μm, the optical model fitting coefficient of determination R² reached 0.999, and the average absolute error was 0.0512 mm. By building a robot grasping experimental platform, the application effectiveness of the sensor in posture estimation and Braille recognition tasks was verified, achieving recognition accuracy rates of 98.6 % and 97.6 %, respectively. It offers an effective technical solution for the engineering application of visual - tactile sensors and the delicate operation of robots.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117172"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326742","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Strain- and phase-engineered Au-WSe₂ nanosheets enable real-time electrochemical sensing of rocuronium","authors":"Shuo-Huang Yuan , Hsiang-Ning Luk , Chia-Chen Lu , Ren-Jang Wu","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117174","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117174","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Real-time monitoring of the neuromuscular blocker rocuronium (ROC) is essential to avoid residual paralysis and delayed recovery during anesthesia. Here we report a hybrid Au-WSe₂ electrocatalyst that enables sensitive, rapid ROC quantification on a glassy carbon electrode. Structural analyses confirm face-centered cubic Au nanocrystals anchored on layered WSe₂; XRD/HRTEM reveal tensile lattice strain in WSe₂ with an increased (002) spacing (6.52–6.55 Å) and Au (111) fringes at 2.35 Å. XPS indicates Au-induced electronic modulation that enriches metallic 1 T/1 T’ character relative to the 2 H phase. These features collectively accelerate interfacial charge transfer, as corroborated by EIS (reduced Rs and Rct) and voltammetry, which shows a pronounced cathodic ROC peak near −1.65 V, an optimal catalyst loading of 0.3 μL, and near-Nernstian pH dependence. Analytically, the sensor exhibits two linear ranges 0.39–12.5 μM and 25–200 μM with a low limit of detection of 0.015 μM in the dilute regime, alongside excellent reproducibility (RSD ≈ 1.9 %) and month-long operational stability. The Au-WSe₂ platform thus couples strain/phase engineering with nanoscale Au (111) activity to deliver a compact, low-cost transducer suited for intraoperative ROC monitoring.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117174"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326736","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yuxuan Sun , Xinhui Zhu , Jialong Li , Shu Chen , Liang Li , Quanliang Cao
{"title":"Design and implementation of a hybrid magnetic actuation system for magnetic continuum intervention robots","authors":"Yuxuan Sun , Xinhui Zhu , Jialong Li , Shu Chen , Liang Li , Quanliang Cao","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117167","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117167","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Magnetic continuum intervention robots, driven by external magnetic fields, can actively navigate within the vascular system of patients. These robots offer distinct advantages over conventional intervention robots, including active deformability and improved patient compliance. However, current magnetic actuation systems used to control these robots predominantly rely on a single magnet type, which fails to reconcile the inherent contradiction between high regulation capability and strong excitation power. In this work, we propose a hybrid magnetic actuation system along with a driving method combining coarse and fine adjustment, enabling efficient and precise deflection control of the robot. Meanwhile, we apply a genetic algorithm to optimize the magnetic source topology, maximizing field generation while ensuring compliance with regulation capability need and robotic arm payload limit. Building on this, we quantitatively evaluate the deformability of robots driven by the hybrid magnetic actuation system. By modulating the current density, robots achieve a deflection ratio adjustment ranging from −32.35 % to 22.81 %. Further validation in 2D leaf-vein and 3D vascular models confirms the robot's capability to perform key functions such as fast route selection and dynamic deflection adjustment. These results provide a basis for future tool development and clinical applications of this technology.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117167"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Jordi-Roger Riba, Ankit Soni, Manuel Moreno-Eguilaz
{"title":"Emissivity-temperature dependence of Cu and Al conductors up to about 250°C and its effects","authors":"Jordi-Roger Riba, Ankit Soni, Manuel Moreno-Eguilaz","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117168","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117168","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Accurate thermal-electric models of power line conductors and busbars require knowledge of surface emissivity and absorptivity, especially when operating at temperatures significantly different from ambient temperatures. Although emissivity tends to increase with conductor temperature, this temperature dependence is often overlooked in conductor models. This paper focuses on measuring this dependence by using two solid copper and aluminum rods with a round cross-section. The rods are heated by passing an alternating current of a known magnitude through them under controlled laboratory conditions. The results show an evident increase in emissivity with temperature, though it differs for copper and aluminum due to their inherent differences and different oxidation behaviors. The data presented show a significant increase in emissivity for aluminum and copper when the temperature ranges from 50°C to over 200°C. This paper also shows the impact of varying emissivity values on the final temperature of the conductors. These results can be useful for accurately modeling electrical conductors and can be directly applied to dynamic line rating (DLR) applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117168"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145325902","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Amuthakkannan Rajakannu , K Vijayalakshmi , Sri Rajkavin AV , Jacob Wekalao
{"title":"Airborne acoustic emission-based intelligent wear detection for spatiotemporal data in CNC drill bits using CEEMDAN and ConvLSTM","authors":"Amuthakkannan Rajakannu , K Vijayalakshmi , Sri Rajkavin AV , Jacob Wekalao","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117170","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117170","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Tool-wear prediction in CNC machines is crucial for effective maintenance management and significantly enhances productivity on the shop floor. Early detection of faults in CNC drilling machines will improve maintenance effectiveness and productivity. Existing methodologies have several limitations, including a slow detection rate, reduced accuracy, difficulty in handling large datasets, and the prediction of incorrect features for classification. The key innovation of this work is the training and benchmarking of the ConvLSTM model, supported by CEEMDAN-based feature extraction, on a dataset collected from CNC drill bits using airborne Acoustic Emission (AE) signals for both healthy and worn-out tools. This study addresses the gaps in the recently developed artificial intelligence-based fault diagnosis using deep learning techniques for spatiotemporal data. This study collected 1000 data sets of tool wear signals as sound signals under established airborne acoustic emission guidelines of IEC 61672 and IEC 61094 using GRAS microphone, with the tool wear of 0.3 mm, 0.6 mm and 0.9 mm in a 3 mm to 3.8 mm diameter drill bit with 0.2 mm steps. The data acquisition system (cDAQ −9185), with the support of signal conditioning device (NI-9234) and LabVIEW software, presents the dataset for healthy and worn-out tools. Because the airborne acoustic signal is non-linear, spatial and temporal dependencies, the creative application of Complete Ensemble Mode Decomposition with Adaptive Noise (CEEMDAN) is used to collect features for classification to give the right inputs to the hybrid deep learning technique. After extracting meaningful features (mean, variance, skewness, kurtosis, and energy (RMS values)) from the Intrinsic Mode Functions (IMFs) as outputs of CEEMDAN, the hybrid deep learning algorithm ConvLSTM was applied to identify the health status of the tools, including minor wear to severe wear. The wear detection of CNC drill bits was achieved 98 % accuracy as a result of the application of ConvLSTM integrated with the CEEMDAN Whereas the ConvLSTM without feature extraction was achieved an accuracy of 96 %. A comparison of CNN, LSTM, and ConvLSTM with and without application of CEEMDAN has also been performed in the paper to ensure the accuracy of the ConvLSTM output.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117170"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326347","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Microwave microfluidic sensor for dielectric characterization of liquids using phase and amplitude variations","authors":"Umesha Sandarenu, Amir Ebrahimi, Kamran Ghorbani","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117158","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117158","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>This research article presents the design and verification of a microwave sensor for measuring the complex permittivity of microfluidic dielectric samples. Unlike the conventional sensors, where the measurement is performed based on the frequency shift and quality factor change, the operation principle in the proposed design is the variation of the reflection phase and amplitude. This efficiently simplifies the measurement by removing the requirement for a frequency sweeping equipment since phase and amplitude variations can be simply detected at a single frequency. The sensor is designed using a coplanar waveguide (CPW) terminated with a series <span><math><mrow><mi>L</mi><mi>C</mi></mrow></math></span> resonator realized with a stepped impedance (SIR) structure. A microfluidic channel is realized in the capacitive gap of the resonator. This enables loading microfluidic liquids onto the most sensitive part of the sensor. Injecting the liquids into the microfluidic channel produces variations in the phase and amplitude of the reflected signal. Such variations are used to determine the complex permittivity of the test sample by developing a mathematical sensing model. The designed sensor is fabricated and tested with water–ethanol solutions for calibration and developing a mathematical model for complex permittivity sensing. The sensing model is then verified using water–methanol solutions. The sensor offers an average sensitivity of <span><math><mrow><mn>2</mn><mo>.</mo><mn>04</mn><msup><mrow><mn>1</mn></mrow><mrow><mo>∘</mo></mrow></msup></mrow></math></span> showing almost two-fold improvement compared with the previously reported designs in the literature.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117158"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Qiuying Ma , Haoyang Yu , Xinlong Guo , Xinghan Jiang , Xiaohao Wang , Qian Zhou , Xiaojun Liang , Kai Ni
{"title":"Rapid and precise absolute distance measurement based on two-photon dual-comb ranging","authors":"Qiuying Ma , Haoyang Yu , Xinlong Guo , Xinghan Jiang , Xiaohao Wang , Qian Zhou , Xiaojun Liang , Kai Ni","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117169","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117169","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Two-photon dual-comb ranging (DCR) technology leverages the nonlinear absorption process of two photons to achieve asynchronous optical sampling with dual combs. It is more tolerant to operate above the Nyquist limit to the pulse observability criterion. In this paper, a two-photon DCR model is established to investigate its optimal ranging precision. The model is equally applicable to other DCR methods, providing optimization guidance for high-precision ranging. We propose a numerical signal processing method for distance measurement. This method significantly improves ranging precision, achieving performance comparable to linear DCR. The relationships between repetition frequency difference, carrier offset envelope frequency and ranging precision are investigated. The results show that the two-photon DCR technology has high ranging precision within a specific range of repetition frequency differences, and is unaffected by the carrier offset envelope frequency. The reliability and robustness of the two-photon dual-comb method is verified by both static and dynamic ranging experiments. The system realizes a 6.1 µm precision for ∼0.5 m stand-off distance at ∼1 kHz acquisition speed. With averaging, the measurement precision drops to ∼92 nm at the averaging time of 4 s. For dynamic distance measurement, it shows good consistency with a commercial heterodyne interferometer. Its wavelength insensitivity was demonstrated using two combs with different spectral range. All the results show that our system can achieve high speed, precise and long-term absolute distance measurement, which can promote the advancement of dual-comb in the field of distance measurement.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117169"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326738","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Peng Zhou , Zhongliang Hu , Zihua Liang , Jinsheng Hu , Lu Liu , Gen Hu , Yuting Xu , Mao Ye
{"title":"Chip-scale non-magnetic ITO heating device for SERF atomic magnetometers","authors":"Peng Zhou , Zhongliang Hu , Zihua Liang , Jinsheng Hu , Lu Liu , Gen Hu , Yuting Xu , Mao Ye","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117133","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117133","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Recent years have seen rapid development on the miniaturization of atomic magnetometers, driven by the demand of high-spatial resolution Magnetoencephalography (MEG) and Magnetocardiogram (MCG). Devices of this kind rely heavily on chip-scale temperature control devices for alkali vapor cell, while conventional approaches namely flexible printed circuits (FPC) present drawbacks including integration difficulties and large magnetic noise. In this study, a novel indium tin oxide (ITO) heating chip is demonstrated, which can be integrated directly into the surface of miniaturized vapor cell. The transparent nature of the resistance wire material allows for flexibility in the coil structure design, as it is not constrained by light transmittance requirements. The device is fabricated on borosilicate glass wafer, which ensures the light transmittance and compatibility with integration. The flaky configuration heating chip shows the magnetic noise with residual magnetic flux density of only 1.949 nT/mA, -0.096 nT/mA and 1.643 nT/mA in the x,y, and z directions, respectively. In addition, the temperature stability of the ITO heating chip was assessed, revealing temperature fluctuations confined to below 0.2 °C. Finally, the experiment achieved comparable sensitivities of 20.38 fT/Hz<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>/</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> and 20.92 fT/Hz<span><math><msup><mrow></mrow><mrow><mn>1</mn><mo>/</mo><mn>2</mn></mrow></msup></math></span> for the alkali vapor cell heated by the ITO chip and the FPC method, respectively. This result also proves that the ITO heating chip can achieve practical temperature control of the vapor cell. This work offers an alternative heating method in miniaturized atomic magnetometer for high-resolution biomedical imaging.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117133"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enhancing cell characterization via hydrodynamic compression in suspended microchannel resonators","authors":"Alberto Martín-Pérez, Daniel Ramos","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117161","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117161","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Microfluidics offer remarkable flexibility for in-flow analyte characterization and can even measure the mechanical properties of biological cells through the application of hydrodynamic forces. In this work, we present a new approach to enhance the performance of nanomechanical resonators featuring integrated microfluidic channels when they are used as cell sensors by means of applying hydrostatic compressions. For this purpose, we have studied analytically how this kind of compressions affects either the mechanical properties of the resonator as well as the analytes. We found that, depending on factors such as device geometry and material composition, the mass limit of detection of the resonator can be reduced while the buoyant mass of the particles is increased when a hydrostatic compression is applied, improving the performance of the sensor. Furthermore, we demonstrate that applying these hydrostatic compressions induces shifts in mass distributions among cell lines with similar physical properties, which not only potentially enhances the ability to differentiate between these lines, but also opens the door to measure the cell’s compressibility, a biophysical parameter of interest with practical diagnostic applications.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117161"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145364682","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Multifunctional fiber-based sensors for next generation wearable technologies","authors":"Wen-Wu Zhang, Chen-Yu Wang, Ke-Zheng Chen, Sheng-Lin Qiao","doi":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117164","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.sna.2025.117164","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Fiber-based sensors manifest exceptional properties such as light-weight, enhanced wearability, and superior flexibility. These attributes facilitate their seamless incorporation into everyday garments, thereby broadening their utility in domains such as health monitoring, smart textiles, and human-computer interaction. As substrates for sensors, fibers offer the dual advantage of facile processing and the capacity for precise structural tuning, which can be exploited to optimize sensor performance for a myriad of applications. In this review, we conduct an in-depth examination of various conductive layer materials, focusing on their intrinsic properties and application potential. We introduce sensor designs that integrate multifunctionality via composite coatings and the functional modification of multilayer conductive structures. Concurrently, we develop smart sensors based on diverse sensing mechanisms by leveraging advanced manufacturing technologies tailored for conductive fibers. Finally, this work presents a comprehensive overview of the applications of fiber-based sensors, demonstrating that through judicious structural design, further functional integration can be achieved to enable promising applications in energy harvesting, personal thermal management, and precision medicine. This research thus charts a novel trajectory for the intelligent evolution of fiber sensor technologies.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":21689,"journal":{"name":"Sensors and Actuators A-physical","volume":"396 ","pages":"Article 117164"},"PeriodicalIF":4.9,"publicationDate":"2025-10-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145326733","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"工程技术","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}