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The paper presents an evaluation of synchronization issues when performing material testing machine calibration using continuous loading. A procedure for the compensation of a rangewide error in calibrated force values is proposed based on a correction factor determined from static and transient errors difference at a chosen force step. The procedure was applied for a calibration of a testing machine with a 20 kN force transducer and 200 N/s to 2000 N/s loading rates. The results show good performance of the compensation technique, reducing calibration errors to below 1% in non-synchronized signals even under unknown filter and delay setting.

The paper presents an evaluation of the loading profile effect on the testing machine calibration. First, a 20 kN force transducer was calibrated in a force calibration machine. This transducer was then used for a number of calibration runs in a 600 kN material testing machine where the time step interval of the same loading profile was varied from 120 s to 0 s. Results show good agreement for most of the range but highlight an increasing error due to synchronization and filtering issues in measured signals when approaching very short step intervals and continuous loading.

Accurate measurement of thrust in rocket engine, as a core parameter of attitude control of rocket engine, is an important guarantee for reliable operation of rocket engines. Therefore, it is very important for accurate calibration. In this paper, a novel rotation calibration method for rocket thrust engine is proposed based on piezoelectric force measurement system. Based on the calibration matrix, sensitivity analysis model of calibration accuracy to coupling relationship between axes is established, and error mechanism and offset mechanism of force are studied. Starting from the deviation principle between actual axis of thrust system and theoretical one, an elliptical geometrical distribution law of lateral force caused by main force is obtained. According to the periodicity of ellipse distribution of calibration force, a new calibration method, rotation calibration method, is obtained based on an idea of homogenization error. Finally, vector force verification is designed, and experimental data are calibrated with the rotation calibration method compared with the traditional linear calibration method, verifying feasibility and rationality of the calibration method. The novel calibration can be also used in force measurement in any rotation devices like manipulator in robot,thrust vector engine, manufacturing force, rocket engine,etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optical tweezers technique is used for ultraprecise micromanipulation to measure positions of micrometer scale objects with a precision down to the nanometer scale. It consists of a high performance research microscope with motorized scanning stage and sensitive position detection system. Up to 10 traps can be used quasi-simultaneously. Non photodamage optical trapping of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria cells of 2 µm in length, as an example of motile bacteria, has been shown in this paper. Also, efficient optical trapping and rotation of polystyrene latex particles of 3 µm in diameter have been studied, as an optical handle for the pick and place of other tiny objects. A fast galvoscanner is used to produce multiple optical traps for manipulation of micro-sized objects and optical forces of these trapped objects quantified and measured according to explanation of ray optics regime. The diameter of trapped particle is bigger than the wavelength of the trapping laser light. The force constant (k) has been determined in real time from the positional time series recorded from the trapped object that is monitored by a CCD camera through a personal computer.

Magnetic tweezers are a force spectroscopy single-molecule technique. They enable the mechanical manipulation of biomolecules via the means of a magnetic particle under an attractive force applied by a magnetic field source. The magnetic particle is tethered to the glass surface of a flow chamber by the biomolecule, and functionalization strategies have been developed to reduce the nonspecific interactions of either the magnetic particles or biomolecules with the surface. Here, we describe two complementary strategies to achieve a high tether density while reducing the interactions of both the magnetic particle and the biomolecule of interest with the glass surface. Using a large detector CMOS camera, the simultaneous observation of several hundreds of tethered magnetic beads is achievable, allowing high-throughput single-molecule measurements. We further describe here a simple procedure to perform the calibration in force of a magnetic tweezers assay., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

An optical tweezers technique is used for ultraprecise micromanipulation to measure positions of micrometer scale objects with a precision down to the nanometer scale. It consists of a high performance research microscope with motorized scanning stage and sensitive position detection system. Up to 10 traps can be used quasisimultaneously. Non photodamage optical trapping of Escherichia coli (E. coli) bacteria cells of 2 µm in length, as an example of motile bacteria, has been shown in this paper. Also, efficient optical trapping and rotation of polystyrene latex particles of 3 µm in diameter have been studied, as an optical handle for the pick and place of other tiny objects. A fast galvoscanner is used to produce multiple optical traps for manipulation of micro-sized objects and optical forces of these trapped objects quantified and measured according to explanation of ray optics regime. The diameter of trapped particle is bigger than the wavelength of the trapping laser light. The force constant (k) has been determined in real time from the positional time series recorded from the trapped object that is monitored by a CCD camera through a personal computer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A transferable force calibration standard based on a silicon microelectromechanical sensor has been designed, fabricated, and characterized for micrometrology applications. Two essential elements of double-meander springs and full piezoresistive etched p-silicon-on-insulator Wheatstone bridges (WBs) are integrated to the sensor for enhancing the device's sensitivity and eliminating the current leakage during an active sensing operation, respectively. The design process is supported by three-dimensional finite element modeling to select the optimal proposed sensors as well as simulating their mechanical and electrical properties in the desired force range (≤1000 μN). To fabricate the microforce sensors, a bulk micromachining technology is used by frequently involving an inductively coupled plasma deep reactive ion etching at cryogenic temperature. Several optical and electrical characterization techniques have been utilized to ensure the quality of the fabricated WBs, where their measured offset voltage can be down to 0.03 ± 0.071 mV/V. In terms of its linearity, the fabricated device exhibits a small nonlinearity of <3%, which leads this sensor to be appropriate for precise microforce standard. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A magnetostrictive force sensor that can be used to measure alternating load is presented. Iron-gallium alloy (Galfenol) is used as the sensing element. The sensor was developed based on a closed structure. A finite element method was employed to optimally design the size of the excitation coil and the flux path. Simulation results show that the flux density distribution can be clearly improved after optimization. Energy efficiency analysis shows that the energy efficiency of the proposed sensor can be increased more than 5 times that of the open structure sensor. To study the sensing behavior, a discrete energy–averaged model was developed to analyze the susceptibility change of Galfenol when it was loaded with alternating stress. Experimental results show that the model can predict the change in susceptibility with good accuracy. The linear part of susceptibility was selected to calibrate the sensor with an alternating load of ±1270 N magnitude. Experiments were conducted to verify the calibration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Off-line robot dynamic identification methods are based on the use of the Inverse Dynamic Identification Model ( IDIM), which calculates the joint forces/torques (estimated as the product of the known control signal-the input reference of the motor current loop-with the joint drive gains) that are linear in relation to the dynamic parameters, and on the use of linear least squares technique to calculate the parameters ( IDIM-LS technique). Most of the papers dealing with the dynamic parameters identification of parallel robots are based on simple models, which take only the dynamics of the moving platform into account. However, for advanced applications such as output force control, in which the robot interaction force with the environment are estimated from the values of the input reference, both identifications of the full robot model and joint drive gains are required to obtain the best results. In this paper a systematic way to derive the full dynamic identification model of parallel robots is proposed in combination with a method that allows the identification of both robot inertial parameters and drive gains. The method is based on the total least squares solution of an over-determined linear system obtained with the inverse dynamic model. This model is calculated with available input reference of the motor current loop and joint position sampled data while the robot is tracking some reference trajectories without load on the robot and some trajectories with a known payload fixed on the robot. The method is experimentally validated on a prototype of parallel robot, the Orthoglide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports a development of millimeter-scale cantilevers equipped with piezoresistive deflection sensing metrology as a force sensor at the micro- and nano-Newton level. The cantilevers was designed and fabricated to minimize the error during the force transfer or calibration, so that they have full-bridge type piezoresistors, a large length and width and reference marks to facilitate the positioning of probes or tips onto the piezoresistive cantilevers. Their 6 mm-long and 0.4 mm-wide dimensions can reduce the error due to incomplete contact (or loading) position. The reference marks on the cantilever can give you a range of stiffness and force sensitivity with a single piezoresistive cantilever. The stiffness can vary from 25 N m at the first mark to 0.04 N m at the last. The full-bridge piezoresistors give an electrical signal proportional to the applied force with superior temperature independency. The fabricated piezoresistive cantilevers were calibrated with the KRISS nano force calibrator (NFC). The results showed that the stiffness and the force sensitivity at the last mark was determined to be 0.0502 N m and 0.357 (mV/V) μN, respectively. The performances were tested by calibrating stiffness of commercial cantilevers using the cantilever-on-cantilever method with a fabricated cantilever and comparing calibration results with stiffness obtained from calibration using the NFC. Two results match to each other within approximately 10 % discrepancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Laser trapping with optical tweezers is a noninvasive manipulation technique and has received increasing attentions in biological applications. Understanding forces exerted on live cells is essential to cell biomechanical characterizations. Traditional numerical or experimental force measurement assumes live cells as ideal objects, ignoring their complicated inner structures and rough membranes. In this paper, we propose a new experimental method to calibrate the trapping and drag forces acted on live cells. Binding a micro polystyrene sphere to a live cell and moving the mixture with optical tweezers, we can obtain the drag force on the cell by subtracting the drag force on the sphere from the total drag force on the mixture, under the condition of extremely low Reynolds number. The trapping force on the cell is then obtained from the drag force when the cell is in force equilibrium state. Experiments on numerous live cells demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed force calibration approach. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We present a new method to improve the accuracy of force application and hardness measurements in hard surfaces by using low-force (<50μN) nanoindentation technique with a cube-corner diamond tip mounted on an atomic force microscopy (AFM) sapphire cantilever. A force calibration procedure based on the force-matching method, which explicitly includes the tip geometry and the tip-substrate deformation during calibration, is proposed. A computer algorithm to automate this calibration procedure is also made available. The proposed methodology is verified experimentally by conducting AFM nanoindentations on fused quartz, Si(100) and a 100-nm-thick film of gold deposited on Si(100). Comparison of experimental results with finite element simulations and literature data yields excellent agreement. In particular, hardness measurements using AFM nanoindentation in fused quartz show a systematic error less than 2% when applying the force-matching method, as opposed to 37% with the standard protocol. Furthermore, the residual impressions left in the different substrates are examined in detail using non-contact AFM imaging with the same diamond probe. The uncertainty of method to measure the projected area of contact at maximum force due to elastic recovery effects is also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The atomic force microscope (AFM) has been widely used as a nano-effector with a function of force sensing to detect interaction forces between an AFM tip and a sample, thereby controlling the process of the nanomanipulation. However, both the extent and accuracy of force application are significantly limited by the nonlinearity of the commonly used optical lever with a nonlinear position-sensitive detector (PSD). In order to compensate the nonlinearity of the optical lever, a nonlinear calibration method is presented. This method applies the nonlinear curve fit to a full-range position-voltage response of the photodiode, obtaining a continuous function of its voltage-related sensitivity. Thus, interaction forces can be defined as integrals of this sensitivity function between any two responses of photodiode voltage outputs, instead of rough transformation with a single conversion factor. The lateral position-voltage response of the photodiode, a universally acknowledged puzzle, was directly characterized by an accurately calibrated force sensor composed of a tippless piezoresistive microcantilever and corresponding electronics, regardless of any knowledge of the cantilevers and laser measuring system. Experiments using a rectangular cantilever (normal spring constant 0.24 N/m) demonstrated that the proposed nonlinear calibration method restrained the sensitivity error of normal position-voltage responses to 3.6% and extended the force application range. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Modelling, fabrication and testing of a piezoresistive silicon cantilever sensor is described which is designed for the transfer of force standard to commercial tactile probing instruments. Cantilever deflection and piezoresistive strain gauge output voltage are measured in dependence on loading from 1 to 250μN revealing small residuals from linearity as well as low scatter around the average of the slopes obtained from 44 calibration runs. A procedure is developed and tested by which the force setting of a surface profiler can be referred to deflection and strain gauge output voltage curves generated by tracing a calibrated cantilever sensor along its axis. Force calibration can be demonstrated within ranges of 10–160μN and 1–200μN by the evaluation of deflection and strain gauge output voltage curves, respectively, at corresponding uncertainties of 50nN to 0.8μN and 12nN to 1.0μN. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We have designed, built, and tested a portable indentor device that allows us to determine force/displacement (F/D) measurements on soft tissue in a clinical or research setting. The indentor system consists of a load cell mounted on a three-dimensional measurement device (Metrecom). The output of the load cell and the Metrecom are recorded and analyzed by software running on a notebook computer. The displacement calibration of the Metrecom gave an average error=0.005 mm [standard deviation (SD)=0.062)]. The force calibration of the load cell resulted in an average error=0.022 N (SD=0.049) and a linearity of 1.0062(R/sup 2/=0.9998). The indentor device was tested on six different human soft tissues by two different investigators. The interreliabilities and intrareliabilities were 0.99 [interclass correlation (ICC)] indicating that the results were repeatable by more than one investigator. F/D measurements from indentor testing on two materials were comparable to values measured using an Instron device (5.34 versus, 5.52 N/mm, and 0.98 versus 1.04 N/mm). The device was used to measure the soft tissue characteristics on the plantar surface of the foot of one subject. These data were used to calculate the effective Young's modulus for the tissue using equations derived by Zheng et al. [1999] and indicated a wide range of values dependent upon the portion of the F/D curve used. All results indicate data from this portable indentor device are reliable, accurate, and sensitive enough to identify mechanical properties of human tissues. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Surgeons, while performing manual endovascular procedures with conventional surgical tools (catheters and guidewires), experience forces on the tool outside the patient's body that are proximal to the point of actuation. Currently, most of the robotic systems for endovascular procedures use active catheters to navigate vasculature and to measure the contact forces at the distal end (tool tip). These tools are more expensive than the conventional surgical tools used in endovascular procedures. To avoid dependence on specialized devices like active catheters, we have developed a novel endovascular robotic system (ERS) that uses conventional surgical tools. Our robot can indirectly measure proximal forces and provide haptic feedback to surgeons. This paper discusses the theory, methodology, and calibration of indirect proximal force measurement. This new calibration technique is presented as a nested optimization problem that is solved using bi-level optimization. The results of experimental validation of the new force calibration methodology are also discussed. The results show that unbiasing of the indirect force measurement by means of force calibration will allow the use of conventional tools in robotic endovascular procedures., (© 2019 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.)

We describe an apparatus for traceable, dynamic calibration of force transducers using harmonic excitation, and report calibration measurements of force transducers using this apparatus. In this system, the force applied to the transducer is produced by the acceleration of an attached mass, and is determined according to Newton's second law, F = ma . The acceleration is measured by primary means, using laser interferometry. The capabilities of this system are demonstrated by performing dynamic calibrations of two shear-web-type force transducers up to a frequency of 2 kHz, with an expanded uncertainty below 1.2 %. We give an accounting of all significant sources of uncertainty, including a detailed consideration of the effects of dynamic tilting (rocking), which is a leading source of uncertainty in such harmonic force calibration systems.