Paper | EchoTube: Robust Touch Sensing along Flexible Tubes using Waveguided Ultrasound

[@NicolaAriutti]

Beautiful application!

[@AdityaMehendale]

Brilliant! Would the same principle work with a time-of-flight sensor and a (plastic) optic-fiber cable?

[@JurekOK]

yes. I have seen first hand, an application of fiberoptic grating tension measurement via light time-of-flight reflectometry, applied to pneumatic snake-robot work head localisation for servicing of jet engines, in Rolls-Royce, UK. But, pneumatic one is probably 1000x cheaper!

[@AdityaMehendale]

@@JurekOK I know the type you mean, but fiber-Bragg-gratings are *really* expensive in construction and read-out-electronics, whereas a ToF sensor (e.g. from ST) costs around a dollar. The ToF sensor (unlike a Bragg) relies on rapid gating of two photodiode-"bins", not interference. Merely touching a POF cable causes enough light-leakage, IMO, to create a sufficiently large (for the ToF-sensor) reflection. Granted, you wouldn't be able to discern multiple reflections simultaneously, like they demo in this video..

[@starlingwatch3921]

I've been working on finger gesture sensing with time-of-flight sensors. I published an open source design at www.reddit.com/r/arduino/comments/sw0tmi/finger_gesture_sensor_fgs_opensource_input/. I'm thinking TOF, Optic cable, and an IMU might be the killer combination. -Frank

[@pavel4pm]

Genious.

[@nonononatsee8514]

what a nice timing thx.