Foot sole sensing device, insole, shoe, sock and machine foot sole fixture

Abstract

The invention relates to a foot sole sensing device, an insole, a shoe, a sock and a machine foot sole fixture. The foot sole sensing device comprises a bottom surface sensing unit, a switch array and a CDC, each sensing unit comprises a plurality of flexible lower electrodes which are laid on the sole and serve as partitions, a plurality of protrusions are formed on the upward side of each partition electrode, the outer surface of each protrusion is an elastic curved surface, an upper electrode is arranged above each protrusion, and an inner insulating layer with the thickness ranging from 10 nanometers to 1 millimeter is arranged between each protrusion and the corresponding upper electrode. The CDC is respectively coupled with each upper electrode, and is coupled with each partition electrode through the switch array; the CDC and the switch array are coupled with the processor, and the processor identifies the environment condition under the foot according to the mutual capacitance between the non-adjacent partition electrodes of the non-contact area before the foot sole is in complete contact with the terrain and the mutual capacitance between the adjacent partition electrodes of the contact area after the foot sole is in partial or complete contact with the terrain. And detecting the pressure distribution condition of the sole according to the capacitance value of each upper electrode contacted with the terrain.

Description

Technical Field

[0001] The invention relates to robot sole detection, and in particular to a sole sensing device, an insole, a shoe, a sock, and a robot sole fixing. Background Art

[0002] The displacement walking of traditional mobile robots relies on detecting the plantar pressure distribution to make real-time posture adjustments. Incorporating terrain information into the posture adjustment control strategy will help the model achieve a smoother adaptive walking of the robot.

[0003] CN112644600B proposes a bipedal robot bionic foot system with active terrain perception capability. The system is composed of multiple sensors working together. The foot visual sensor obtains image information of the ground at the foothold at a long distance, the foot ultrasonic distance sensor obtains the flatness of the ground at the foothold at a close distance, and the plantar pressure sensor obtains the force on the plantar when in contact with the ground. The information from multiple sensors jointly affects the foot posture adjustment strategy. Although the mobility is improved, the visual sensor is easily affected by light, and there is mud attached to the foot environment to block the lens. The ultrasonic wave facing downward is easily blocked by trampled mud, making it difficult to apply in reality. Summary of the invention

[0004] The present invention improves the deficiencies of the prior art and provides a sole sensor device, an insole, a shoe, a sock, and a machine sole fixture.

[0005] The sole sensing device of the present invention comprises a bottom sensing unit, a switch array, and a capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit; the bottom sensing unit comprises at least three flexible lower electrodes laid on the sole of the foot, the flexible lower electrodes serve as partition electrodes, each partition electrode is formed with at least two protrusions on the upper side, the protrusions on each partition electrode constitute an array for detecting sole pressure distribution, the outer surface of each protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one upper electrode is arranged above each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of 10 nanometers to 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding upper electrode, the upward projection of the protrusion at least covers a partial area of ​​each corresponding upper electrode, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion involved in the deformation change of the lower electrode by external force on each corresponding upper electrode; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit couples each upper electrode respectively, and couples each partition electrode respectively through the switch array; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor, and the processor is configured to identify the sole environment at least based on the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partition electrodes in the uncontacted area before the sole completely contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partition electrodes in the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain, and detect the sole pressure distribution based on the capacitance value of each upper electrode after contacting the terrain.

[0006] With the help of the dot matrix structure formed by the protrusions and the upper electrode, high-sensitivity and high-accuracy pressure distribution detection is achieved based on the capacitance method and CDC, providing basic information for the robot's posture adjustment; with the help of at least three partitioned electrode structures, the mutual capacitance characteristics of non-adjacent partitions in the uncontacted area when away from the ground, and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partitioned electrodes in the contact area when in contact with the ground are obtained through pairwise combination, so as to identify the terrain conditions under the feet and provide auxiliary advanced information for the robot's posture adjustment; the partitioned electrodes, protrusions, and upper electrodes are arranged in layers, and pressure measurement and mutual capacitance terrain measurement are compatible. The partitioned electrodes can expand the number of partitions according to the mutual capacitance acquisition density, so as to achieve a dense dot matrix to improve the recognition subdivision of the terrain under the feet. At the same time, the bottom partitioned electrode structure is not afraid of the blockage and occlusion of mud under stepping.

[0007] The foot sensor device provided by the present invention also includes the following auxiliary technical solutions:

[0008] The area of ​​the partition electrodes and / or the spacing between adjacent partition electrodes are configured so that the effective induction electric field of the mutual capacitance formed by the adjacent partition electrodes exceeds the surface of the sole sensor device contacting the ground by at most 0.5-50 mm.

[0009] The capacitance value of the upper electrode in the area where the sole contacts the terrain has a change greater than a threshold value compared to the capacitance value of the upper electrode in the area not in contact, which is used as a judgment condition for distinguishing the contact area from the non-contact area.

[0010] Among them, the processor runs at least the following steps: before the sole of the foot contacts the terrain, at least the change in mutual capacitance composed of two non-adjacent partitioned electrodes is obtained through the switch array; before the sole of the foot contacts the terrain, at least the change in mutual capacitance composed of two non-adjacent partitioned electrodes is obtained through the switch array; when the sole of the foot partially contacts the terrain, at least the change in mutual capacitance composed of two non-adjacent partitioned electrodes in the uncontacted area and the change in mutual capacitance composed of two adjacent partitioned electrodes in the contacted area are obtained through the switch array; when the sole of the foot completely contacts the terrain, based on time-sharing sampling, the change in capacitance of each upper electrode is obtained through the switch array, and at least the change in mutual capacitance composed of two adjacent partitioned electrodes is obtained.

[0011] Among them, for the capacitance change of each electrode used to reflect the pressure, the pressure distribution is analyzed based on the mechanical decoupling algorithm; for the mutual capacitance between the partitioned electrodes, the features extracted from the mutual capacitance change are used as the input of the SNN pulse neural network to generate an output pulse sequence that represents the terrain conditions under the foot.

[0012] Among them, the process of forming mutual capacitance between partition electrodes further includes: in each round of detection, the mutual capacitance between each partition electrode and the remaining partition electrodes in the corresponding area is obtained in turn to form a feature data set as the input of the SNN pulse neural network.

[0013] When obtaining the capacitance of each upper electrode, the partition electrode is grounded by controlling the switch array.

[0014] Wherein, an upper electrode is correspondingly arranged above each protrusion, and the upper electrode serves as a self-capacitance electrode for pressure detection.

[0015] Wherein, a first upper electrode and a second upper electrode are correspondingly arranged above each protrusion, and the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode form a planar mutual capacitance for pressure detection; and the partition electrode is configured to be coupled to the ground when performing upper electrode capacitance sampling.

[0016] Among them, the protrusions form a dot matrix, the first upper electrodes in the same row in the dot matrix are coupled to each other, and the second upper electrodes in the same column in the dot matrix are coupled to each other; the digital processing circuit controls the capacitance digital conversion circuit to obtain the mutual capacitance change between the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode at each point according to the row and column scanning method.

[0017] Wherein, within the projection area of ​​the protrusion relative to the upper electrode, the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode form a partially or completely symmetrical distribution pattern around the corresponding protrusion.

[0018] The outer surface of the protrusion forms a spherical curved surface; the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode gradually rotate outward around the center of the corresponding protrusion on the plane to form an equidistant spiral.

[0019] Among them, it includes at least one group of side sensing units laid on the side of the foot; each group of side sensing units includes at least two flexible external electrodes arranged along a set direction, the at least two flexible external electrodes are arranged to form mutual capacitance and / or self-capacitance for detecting the approach of side obstacles, each external electrode forms a protrusion on the inner side, the outer surface of the protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one inner electrode is arranged in the inner direction of each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding inner electrode, the inward projection of the protrusion at least covers a partial area of ​​each corresponding inner electrode, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion on each corresponding inner electrode involved in the deformation change of the external electrode due to external force; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each inner electrode respectively, and is coupled to each outer electrode respectively through a switch array, and the switch array serves as a time-sharing selection channel for coupling the external electrode to the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit or ground; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor.

[0020] The processor is configured to also include identifying the terrain conditions under the foot based on the mutual capacitance between the flexible external electrodes of the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain.

[0021] Among them, it includes a circuit board, an upper electrode is formed on the surface of the circuit board; a first wear-resistant insulating layer is arranged on the upward side of the circuit board, and the first wear-resistant insulating layer is thick enough to isolate or reduce electric field penetration; and / or an active shielding layer is arranged on the upward side of the circuit board.

[0022] Wherein, a second wear-resistant insulating layer is arranged on the bottom surface of the partition electrode; and a protrusion is arranged downwardly on the second wear-resistant insulating layer corresponding to the bottom surface of each partition electrode.

[0023] Among them, it includes an energy storage battery for powering the sole sensor device; and / or, it includes a power supply interface for the plug-in external robot's energy system.

[0024] Another foot sensor device is also provided, including a bottom sensing unit, a switch array, a capacitance digital conversion circuit, and a circuit board; the bottom sensing unit includes at least one flexible upper electrode, each flexible upper electrode is formed with at least two protrusions on the downward side, the protrusions of each flexible upper electrode constitute an array for detecting the pressure distribution of the foot, the outer surface of each protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one lower electrode is arranged under each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding lower electrode, the downward projection of the protrusion at least covers a partial area of ​​each corresponding lower electrode, and the deformation change of the protrusion under force and the distance between each corresponding lower electrode are The circuit board has a contact area; the lower electrode is formed on the top surface of the circuit board, and at least three third electrodes are arranged on the bottom surface of the circuit board, and the third electrodes serve as partition electrodes; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each lower electrode respectively, and each partition electrode is coupled to each partition electrode respectively through the switch array; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor, and the processor is configured to identify the environment under the foot at least based on the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partition electrodes in the uncontacted area before the sole of the foot completely contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partition electrodes in the contact area after the sole of the foot partially or completely contacts the terrain, and detect the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot based on the capacitance values ​​of each lower electrode after contacting the terrain.

[0025] Also provided is a shoe insole, a shoe, a sock or a machine foot fixer, comprising the foot sensor device. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0026] Figure 1 Give a schematic diagram of the structure of the robot bionic shoe;

[0027] Figure 2 Give the internal structure of the robot bionic shoe;

[0028] Figure 3 The distribution structure of the partitioned electrodes on the bottom surface of the robot is given;

[0029] Figure 4 The cross-sectional structure of the robot bionic shoe is given;

[0030] Figure 5A schematic diagram of a capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit coupling each partition electrode through a switch array is given;

[0031] Figure 6a The schematic diagram of the mutual capacitance sampling of the partitioned electrodes when the sensor device is far away from the ground (during the process of lifting and dropping the foot) is given;

[0032] Figure 6b A schematic diagram of sampling the mutual capacitance of partitioned electrodes when the sensor device is close to or partially in contact with the ground is given;

[0033] Figure 6c The schematic diagram of the mutual capacitance sampling of the partitioned electrodes when the sensor device is completely in contact with the ground is given;

[0034] Figure 7a A schematic diagram of the structure for collecting the pressure reflected by the self-capacitance of the upper electrode is given;

[0035] Figure 7b A schematic diagram of the structure for collecting the pressure reflected by the mutual capacitance of the upper electrodes is given;

[0036] Figure 7c A schematic diagram of the arrangement structure of the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode is given; and

[0037] Figure 8 A schematic diagram of the inverted sensor structure is given. DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0038] The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be described clearly and completely below in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in the embodiments of the present invention.

[0039] Example 1

[0040] Figure 1 The structure of the robot bionic shoe is shown in FIG. 1 , which is mainly composed of an upper shell 100, a rubber assembly 200, an external cable 300 and a built-in circuit board. The bionic shoe is structurally connected to the robot foot through the upper shell 100 and electrically connected to the robot through the external cable 200.

[0041] The sole sensor is installed on the bionic shoe to detect the sole pressure distribution and the terrain characteristics based on mutual capacitance. Figures 2 to 4 The sole sensing device includes a bottom sensing unit and a circuit board. The circuit board 400 is fixed to the bottom of the upper housing 100 through a structural bracket 401, and a flexible circuit board is drawn out around the periphery to arrange the side electrodes described later. A switch array, a capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit CDC, and a processor are arranged on the circuit board 400. As an optional solution, the processor can be external and communicate with the CDC through an external cable 200.

[0042] The bottom sensing unit includes at least three flexible lower electrodes laid on the sole of the foot. The flexible lower electrodes serve as partition electrodes 500. The terrain features are detected based on mutual capacitance through the combination of different partition electrodes 500. The rubber assembly 200 is composed of conductive silicone and insulating rubber. The conductive silicone is divided into side conductive silicone and bottom conductive silicone. The partition electrode 500 is made of bottom conductive silicone. Adjacent partitions are electrically isolated by insulating rubber. In one detection cycle, the six partitions of the sensor, two adjacent pieces of conductive silicone form two large electrodes, forming a mutual capacitor, and the terrain is judged by the changing characteristics of the mutual capacitance.

[0043] Each partition electrode 500 is formed with at least two protrusions 501 on the upper side, and the protrusions 501 on each partition electrode 500 constitute an array for detecting the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot. The outer surface of each protrusion 501 is an elastic curved surface, and at least one upper electrode 502 is arranged above each protrusion 501, and the upper electrode 502 is formed with the bottom surface of the circuit board 400. An inner insulating layer is arranged between the protrusion 501 and the corresponding upper electrode 502 for isolation, and the thickness of the inner insulating layer is configured between 10 nanometers and 1 mm to achieve high sensitivity of sensor pressure detection. The upward projection of the protrusion 501 at least covers part of the area of ​​each corresponding upper electrode 502, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion 501 on each corresponding upper electrode 502 involved in the deformation change of the lower electrode by external force. The dot matrix pattern formed by the protrusion 501 and the corresponding upper electrode 502 above provides the ability to detect the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot. When in contact with the ground, under the action of gravity, the conductive silicone hemispherical protrusion is deformed, and the contact area with the circuit board electrode is increased, resulting in an increase in the electrode capacitance. According to the change in capacitance, the pressure value is measured. The conductive silicone hemispherical protrusions and the electrodes on the circuit board are distributed in a dot matrix and correspond one to one. The distribution state of pressure is measured by comparing the changes in electrode capacitance at different positions.

[0044] The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each upper electrode 502 to sample the capacitance value to reflect the pressure. Figure 5 The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit couples each partition electrode 500 through a switch array to obtain a mutual capacitance combination between two partitions.

[0045] Based on the above structure, Figure 6a The mutual capacitance sampling of the partitioned electrodes when the sensing device is far away from the ground (during the process of lifting and dropping the foot) is shown. Before the sole of the foot touches the terrain, the mutual capacitance change of the non-adjacent partitioned electrodes 500 is obtained through the switch array, so as to achieve long-distance foot condition detection before landing.

[0046] Figure 6bA schematic diagram of sampling the mutual capacitance of partitioned electrodes when the sensing device is close to or partially in contact with the ground is given. When the sole of the foot partially contacts the terrain, at least the mutual capacitance change of non-adjacent partitioned electrodes 500 in the uncontacted area and the mutual capacitance change of adjacent partitioned electrodes 500 in the contacted area are obtained through the switch array. Due to the complex situation under the ground surface, we do not want the mutual capacitance electric field lines to penetrate deep into the ground when contacting, which will not only fail to detect the marker information well but will be affected by the environment under the ground surface. Therefore, it is necessary to switch and measure the mutual capacitance between adjacent partitioned electrodes 500 in the contacted area during the contact process.

[0047] Figure 6c The following is a schematic diagram of sampling the mutual capacitance of the partitioned electrodes when the sensing device is completely in contact with the ground. When the sole of the foot is completely in contact with the terrain, based on time-sharing sampling, the capacitance change of each upper electrode 502 is obtained through the switch array, and at least the mutual capacitance change of each of the adjacent partitioned electrodes 500 is obtained.

[0048] The capacitance digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled to the processor respectively, and the processor controls the switch array to realize the rising mutual capacitance combination. The capacitance digital conversion circuit samples the mutual capacitance of the corresponding partition combination and the capacitance value of the upper electrode in a time-sharing manner and inputs it into the processor. The processor identifies the environment under the foot based on the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partition electrodes 500 in the uncontacted area before the sole of the foot fully contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partition electrodes 500 in the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain, and detects the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot based on the capacitance value of each upper electrode 502 after contacting the terrain.

[0049] The solution of the present invention, with the help of the dot matrix structure formed by the protrusions and the upper electrode, achieves high-sensitivity and high-accuracy pressure distribution detection based on the capacitance method and CDC, and provides basic information for robot posture adjustment; with the help of at least three partitioned electrode structures, the mutual capacitance characteristics of non-adjacent partitions in the uncontacted area when away from the ground, and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partitioned electrodes in the contact area when contacting the ground are obtained by pairwise combination, so as to identify the terrain conditions under the feet and provide auxiliary advanced information for robot posture adjustment; the partitioned electrodes, protrusions, and upper electrodes are arranged in layers, and pressure measurement and mutual capacitance terrain measurement are compatible. The partitioned electrodes can expand the number of partitions according to the mutual capacitance acquisition density, so as to achieve a dense dot matrix to improve the recognition subdivision of the terrain under the feet. At the same time, the bottom partitioned electrode structure is not afraid of the blockage and occlusion of mud under stepping.

[0050] In the above, the area of ​​the partition electrode 500 and / or the spacing between adjacent partition electrodes 500 are configured so that the effective induced electric field of the mutual capacitance formed by adjacent partition electrodes 500 exceeds the surface of the sole sensor device contacting the ground by at most 0.5-50 mm, so as to avoid detection interference caused by excessive penetration into the ground. The capacitance value of the upper electrode 502 in the area where the sole contacts the terrain produces a change greater than the threshold value compared with the capacitance value of the upper electrode 502 in the uncontacted area, which is used as the judgment condition for distinguishing the contact area from the uncontacted area.

[0051] As an improved solution, for the capacitance change of each electrode used to reflect the pressure, the pressure distribution is analyzed based on the mechanical decoupling algorithm; for the mutual capacitance between the partitioned electrodes 500, the features extracted from the mutual capacitance change are used as the input of the SNN pulse neural network to generate an output pulse sequence representing the terrain under the foot. In the above process, the traditional analysis method is used for the analysis of the change characteristics of the capacitance dot matrix, that is, the mechanical decoupling algorithm is used. Since the number of capacitance dot matrices is relatively large and the characteristic changes are more intuitive, the traditional analysis method can greatly reduce the computing power requirements; the pulse neural network (SNN) method is used for the analysis of the change characteristics of the mutual capacitance. Since the number of mutual capacitances is relatively small and the characteristic changes are more complex, the pulse neural network (SNN) analysis method can greatly improve the accuracy; the combination of the two analysis methods can achieve a better balance in all aspects.

[0052] As another improvement, the process of forming mutual capacitance between two partition electrodes 500 further includes: in each round of detection, the mutual capacitance between each partition electrode 500 and the other partition electrodes 500 in the corresponding area is obtained in turn, forming a feature data set as the input of the SNN pulse neural network. By gradually traversing all the mutual capacitances between each partition and other partitions in the detection cycle, that is, when the first partition electrode is used as an excitation, the other partition electrodes are controlled to receive, and the mutual capacitance between the first partition electrode and each of the remaining partitions is obtained, and then the next partition electrode is operated in the same way until the last partition is used as an excitation to complete this round of acquisition, forming a plane-like ECT effect, further subdividing and identifying the uneven ground conditions and / or material conditions at various places under the foot, and at the same time, a large amount of data further improves the accuracy of the SNN processing results.

[0053] As another improvement scheme, when obtaining the capacitance of each upper electrode 502 , the partition electrode 500 is controlled to be grounded through the switch array, and the partition electrode 500 itself serves as a shielding electrode for the upper electrode 502 , thereby further improving the accuracy of pressure measurement.

[0054] Figure 7aA schematic diagram of the structure for collecting the pressure reflected by the self-capacitance of the upper electrode is given. An upper electrode 502 is correspondingly arranged above each protrusion 501, and the upper electrode 502 is used as a self-capacitance electrode for pressure detection. During measurement, the digital processing circuit outputs excitation to each upper electrode and uses itself as a receiver.

[0055] Considering that the self-capacitance belongs to the capacitance to the ground, the distance between the foot and the ground is too close, and the influence of the ground on the self-capacitance is very large. In order to improve the sensitivity and signal-to-noise ratio of pressure detection, Figure 7b The schematic diagram of the structure for collecting the upper electrode mutual capacitance to reflect the pressure is given. Figure 7c A schematic diagram of the arrangement structure of the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode is given. A first upper electrode 5021 and a second upper electrode 5022 are correspondingly arranged above each protrusion 501. The first upper electrode 5021 and the second upper electrode 5022 form a planar mutual capacitance for pressure detection; the partition electrode 500 is configured to be coupled to the ground when sampling the capacitance of the upper electrode 502. The planar mutual capacitance is used to overcome the detection interference when there is a large area of ​​metal on the surface of the manipulator or it is too close to the ground. At the same time, since the partition electrode 500 is coupled to the ground and the electrodes 5021 and 5022 construct a planar mutual capacitance, the protrusion gradually approaches the electric field as it is pressed, and the planar mutual capacitance electric field lines are absorbed through the ground. The mutual capacitance decreases with the pressure, meeting the application requirements of special occasions.

[0056] The protrusions 501 form a dot matrix, the first upper electrodes 5021 in the same row in the dot matrix are coupled to each other, and the second upper electrodes 5022 in the same column in the dot matrix are coupled to each other; the digital processing circuit controls the capacitance digital conversion circuit to obtain the change in mutual capacitance between the first upper electrode 5021 and the second upper electrode 5022 at each point according to the row and column scanning method. By scanning the mutual capacitance in rows and columns, high-density multi-point force measurement is formed with a small number of channels.

[0057] In which, within the projection area of ​​the protrusion 501 relative to the upper electrode 502 , the first upper electrode 5021 and the second upper electrode 5022 form a partially or completely symmetrical distribution pattern around the corresponding protrusion 501 .

[0058] The outer surface of the protrusion forms a spherical curved surface; the first upper electrode 5021 and the second upper electrode 5022 gradually rotate outward on a plane around the center of the corresponding protrusion 501 to form an equidistant spiral. The spiral involute is circular and gradually opens outward, and the surface of the protrusion corresponds to a spherical curved surface. When the protrusion is pressed, the indirect contact area on the detection electrode gradually opens, which is consistent with the gradual opening change of the gap between the first upper electrode 5021 and the second upper electrode 5022. The consistency relationship between the changes of the two is good, and the force and capacitance changes are regular, which can effectively improve the resolution of the force change.

[0059] As another improvement, refer to Figure 2A flexible circuit board is led out from the side of the circuit board 400, and the sensing device includes at least one group of side sensing units laid on the side of the foot. Each group of side sensing units includes at least two flexible external electrodes 600 arranged along a set direction, and the at least two arranged flexible external electrodes 600 form mutual capacitance and / or self-capacitance for detecting the approach of side obstacles. Each external electrode 600 forms a protrusion on the inner side, and the outer surface of the protrusion is an elastic curved surface. At least one inner electrode 601 is arranged in the inner direction of each protrusion, and an inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is provided between the protrusion 501 and the corresponding inner electrode 601. The inward projection of the protrusion 501 covers at least a partial area of ​​each corresponding inner electrode 601, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion 501 on each corresponding inner electrode 601 involved in the deformation change of the external electrode 600 due to external force; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each inner electrode 601 respectively, and is coupled to each external electrode 600 through a switch array respectively, and the switch array serves as a time-sharing selection channel for coupling the external electrode 600 to the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit or ground; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor. By setting up multiple external electrodes to form self-capacitance or mutual capacitance between two electrodes, the inner protrusion of each external electrode cooperates with the compressive deformation of the corresponding inner electrode. The structure conveniently realizes the function of sensing the approach of objects on the side of the machine foot, as well as the function of sensing the collision force of objects, ensuring the safety of the machine foot itself and the outside world when performing tasks or moving.

[0060] Furthermore, the processor is configured to further include identifying the terrain under the foot based on the mutual capacitance between the flexible outer electrodes 600 of the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain. The terrain is identified by the mutual capacitance of the side and bottom surfaces. For terrains where the sole is partially sunken after stepping on, such as sand or water, adding the mutual capacitance characteristics of the side surfaces to input into the AI ​​will help to make a better judgment.

[0061] As another improvement scheme, a first wear-resistant insulating layer is provided on the upward side of the circuit board, and the wear-resistant insulating layer serves as isolation protection. The first wear-resistant insulating layer is thick enough to isolate or reduce electric field penetration, and reduce the interference of the metal of the machine foot itself on the capacitance detection of the electrode below; and / or, an active shielding layer is provided on the upward side of the circuit board to shield the interference of the metal of the machine foot itself on the electrode. Furthermore, a second wear-resistant insulating layer is provided on the bottom surface of the partition electrode 500 as protection for the conductive silicone on the bottom surface to improve the wear resistance. More preferably, see Figure 3 The second wear-resistant insulating layer is provided with a protrusion 503 facing downwards on the bottom surface corresponding to each partition electrode 500. The protrusion 503 is located at the geometric center of the partition electrode 500. The protrusion 503 can help in selecting the center of gravity during measurement, which is helpful for the balance control and posture adjustment control of the robot.

[0062] In this embodiment, the sensing device includes an energy storage battery for powering the sole sensing device; and / or includes a power supply interface for plugging in an external energy system of the robot.

[0063] In this embodiment, the sensing device is not limited to being disposed inside the shoe, but may be disposed on the insole, a machine foot fixture, or even on a consumable sock to provide a capacitive sensing function.

[0064] Example 2

[0065] The technology of Example 2 is the same as that of Example 1, except that the upper electrode and the protrusion are reversed, and the circuit board is located at the bottom. By setting additional partition electrodes on the bottom of the circuit board, the combined mutual capacitance can be used to identify the terrain under the foot, and the protrusion and the lower electrode can be used to detect the pressure distribution. Specifically, Figure 8 A schematic diagram of the inverted sensing device structure is given, which includes a bottom sensing unit, a switch array, a capacitance digital conversion circuit, and a circuit board; the bottom sensing unit includes a flexible upper electrode. Since the upper electrode does not need to be reused as a partition, the number of upper electrodes can be as low as one, and each flexible upper electrode is formed with at least two protrusions 801 on the downward side. The protrusions 801 of each flexible upper electrode constitute an array for detecting the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot. The outer surface of each protrusion 801 is an elastic curved surface, and at least one lower electrode 802 is arranged under each protrusion 801. An inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion 801 and the corresponding lower electrode 802. The downward projection of the protrusion 801 at least covers a partial area of ​​each corresponding lower electrode 802. The protrusion 801 The force deformation changes the indirect contact area with each corresponding lower electrode 802; the lower electrode 802 is formed on the top surface of the circuit board 803, and at least three third electrodes 804 are arranged on the bottom surface of the circuit board 803, and the third electrode 803 serves as a partition electrode; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each lower electrode 802 respectively, and is coupled to each partition electrode 803 respectively through the switch array; the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor, and the processor is configured to identify the environment under the foot at least based on the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partition electrodes in the uncontacted area before the sole of the foot fully contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partition electrodes in the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain, and detect the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot based on the capacitance value of each lower electrode after contacting the terrain.

[0066] Finally, it should be noted that the above embodiments are only used to illustrate the technical solution of the present invention, rather than to limit the scope of protection of the present invention. Although the present invention has been described in detail with reference to the preferred embodiments, those skilled in the art should understand that the technical solution of the present invention can be modified or replaced by equivalents without departing from the essence and scope of the technical solution of the present invention.

Claims

1. A foot sensor device, characterized in that: It includes a bottom surface sensing unit, a switch array, and a capacitance digital conversion circuit; The bottom surface sensing unit includes at least three flexible lower electrodes laid on the sole of the foot, the flexible lower electrodes serve as partition electrodes, each partition electrode is formed with at least two protrusions on the upper side, the protrusions on each partition electrode constitute an array for detecting the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot, the outer surface of each protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one upper electrode is arranged above each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding upper electrode, the upward projection of the protrusion at least covers a part of the area of ​​each corresponding upper electrode, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion on each corresponding upper electrode involved in the deformation change of the lower electrode due to external force; The capacitance digital conversion circuit is coupled to each upper electrode respectively, and is coupled to each partition electrode respectively through the switch array; The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor, which is configured to identify the environment under the foot based on at least the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partitioned electrodes in the uncontacted area before the sole of the foot fully contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partitioned electrodes in the contact area after the sole of the foot partially or fully contacts the terrain, and to detect the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot based on the capacitance values ​​of each upper electrode after the sole of the foot contacts the terrain.

2. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The area of ​​the partitioned electrodes and / or the intervals between adjacent partitioned electrodes are configured so that the effective induction electric field of the mutual capacitance formed by the adjacent partitioned electrodes exceeds the surface of the sole sensor device contacting the ground by at most 0.5-50 mm.

3. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The capacitance value of the upper electrode in the area where the sole contacts the terrain has a change greater than a threshold value compared to the capacitance value of the upper electrode in the area not in contact, which is used as a judgment condition for distinguishing the contact area from the non-contact area.

4. The foot sensor device according to claim 3, characterized in that: The processor runs at least the following steps: Before the sole of the foot contacts the terrain, at least the mutual capacitance change of two non-adjacent partition electrodes is obtained through the switch array; Before the sole of the foot contacts the terrain, at least the mutual capacitance change of two non-adjacent partition electrodes is obtained through the switch array; When the sole part of the foot contacts the terrain, at least the mutual capacitance change composed of two non-adjacent partition electrodes in the non-contact area and the mutual capacitance change composed of two adjacent partition electrodes in the contact area are obtained through the switch array; When the sole of the foot is in full contact with the terrain, the capacitance change of each upper electrode is obtained through the switch array based on time-sharing sampling, and at least the mutual capacitance change of two adjacent partition electrodes is obtained.

5. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: The pressure distribution is analyzed based on the mechanical decoupling algorithm for the capacitance change of each electrode that reflects the pressure. For the mutual capacitance between partitioned electrodes, the features extracted from the mutual capacitance changes are used as the input of the SNN pulse neural network to generate an output pulse sequence that represents the terrain conditions under the foot.

6. The foot sensor device according to claim 5, characterized in that: The process of forming mutual capacitance between partition electrodes further includes: In each round of detection, the mutual capacitance between each partition electrode and the remaining partition electrodes in the corresponding area is obtained in turn to form a feature data set as the input of the SNN pulse neural network.

7. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: When obtaining the capacitance of each upper electrode, the partition electrode is grounded by controlling the switch array.

8. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: An upper electrode is correspondingly arranged above each protrusion, and the upper electrode serves as a self-capacitance electrode for pressure detection.

9. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: A first upper electrode and a second upper electrode are correspondingly arranged above each protrusion, and the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode form a planar mutual capacitance for pressure detection; The partition electrodes are configured to be coupled to ground when performing upper electrode capacitance sampling.

10. The foot sensor device according to claim 9, characterized in that: The protrusions form a dot matrix, the first upper electrodes in the same row in the dot matrix are coupled to each other, and the second upper electrodes in the same column in the dot matrix are coupled to each other; The digital processing circuit controls the capacitance digital conversion circuit to obtain the change amount of the mutual capacitance between the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode at each point according to the row-column scanning method.

11. The foot sensor device according to claim 10, characterized in that: Within the projection area of ​​the protrusion relative to the upper electrode, the first upper electrode and the second upper electrode form a partially or completely symmetrical distribution pattern around the corresponding protrusion.

12. The foot sensor device according to claim 11, characterized in that: The outer surface of the convexity forms a spherical curved surface; The first upper electrode and the second upper electrode gradually rotate outward around the center of the corresponding protrusion on the plane to form an equidistant spiral.

13. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: including at least one set of side sensing units laid on the side of the foot; Each group of side sensing units includes at least two flexible outer electrodes arranged along a set direction, the at least two arranged flexible outer electrodes form a mutual capacitance and / or self-capacitance for detecting the approach of a side obstacle, each outer electrode forms a protrusion on the inner side, the outer surface of the protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one inner electrode is arranged in the inner direction of each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of between 10 nanometers and 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding inner electrode, the inward projection of the protrusion at least covers a part of the area of ​​each corresponding inner electrode, and the indirect contact area of ​​the protrusion on each corresponding inner electrode involved in the deformation change of the external electrode by the external force; The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit is coupled to each inner electrode respectively, and is coupled to each outer electrode respectively through a switch array, and the switch array serves as a time-sharing gating channel for coupling the outer electrode to the capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit or ground; The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor.

14. The foot sensor device according to claim 13, characterized in that: The processor is configured to further include identifying the terrain condition under the foot according to the mutual capacitance between the flexible outer electrodes of the contact area after partial or full contact with the terrain.

15. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: It includes a circuit board, and the upper electrode is formed on the surface of the circuit board; A first wear-resistant insulating layer is disposed on the upward side of the circuit board, and the first wear-resistant insulating layer is thick enough to isolate or reduce electric field penetration; And / or, an active shielding layer is provided on the upward side of the circuit board.

16. The foot sensor device according to claim 15, characterized in that: A second wear-resistant insulating layer is provided on the bottom surface of the partition electrode; The second wear-resistant insulating layer is provided with a protrusion facing downwards on the bottom surface corresponding to each partition electrode.

17. The foot sensor device according to claim 1, characterized in that: Including energy storage batteries for powering the foot sensor device; And / or, include a power supply interface for plugging in an external energy system of the robot.

18. A foot sensor device, characterized in that: It includes a bottom surface sensing unit, a switch array, a capacitance digital conversion circuit, and a circuit board; The bottom surface sensing unit includes at least one flexible upper electrode, each flexible upper electrode is formed with at least two protrusions on the downward side, the protrusions of each flexible upper electrode constitute an array for detecting the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot, the outer surface of each protrusion is an elastic curved surface, at least one lower electrode is arranged under each protrusion, an inner insulating layer with a thickness of 10 nanometers to 1 millimeter is arranged between the protrusion and the corresponding lower electrode, the downward projection of the protrusion at least covers a part of the area of ​​each corresponding lower electrode, and the protrusion is deformed by force to change the indirect contact area with each corresponding lower electrode; The lower electrode is formed on the top surface of the circuit board, and at least three third electrodes are arranged on the bottom surface of the circuit board, and the third electrodes serve as partition electrodes; The capacitance digital conversion circuit is coupled to each lower electrode respectively, and is coupled to each partition electrode respectively through the switch array; The capacitance-to-digital conversion circuit and the switch array are coupled with a processor, which is configured to identify the environment under the foot based on at least the mutual capacitance between non-adjacent partitioned electrodes in the uncontacted area before the sole of the foot fully contacts the terrain and the mutual capacitance between adjacent partitioned electrodes in the contact area after the sole of the foot partially or fully contacts the terrain, and to detect the pressure distribution of the sole of the foot based on the capacitance values ​​of each lower electrode after contacting the terrain.

19. A shoe insole, characterized in that: The method comprises the foot sensor device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 18.

20. A shoe, characterized in that: The method comprises the foot sensor device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 18.

21. A pair of socks, characterized in that: The method comprises the foot sensor device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 18.

22. A machine foot fixture, characterized in that: The method comprises the foot sensor device as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 18.

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