1 General Limitations for using the Sensors
• Applying too high forces or pressures will destroy the sensor module and will void the warranty.
Never apply more than 3 N z-axis force (force applied perpendicular to the sensor’s surface) to one
sensor cell (the XR1922 has 4 sensor cells, for example). Regarding x-axis and y-axis, the sum of
the shear forces has to stay below 15 kPa. These values are higher than the measurement range of the
sensor (given in the datasheet), as the sensor can be overloaded.
Furthermore, apply forces only to the sensor surface, not to the sides of the sensor module.
• As a skin sensor, the contact geometry always influences the measurements. Therefore, we do not
calibrate the sensors, as any calibration would be valid only for the same contact shape. We suggest
that you use machine learning techniques or your algorithms to get various information out of the
sensor measurements, relevant for your application.
• As our sensor uses magnetic field changes induced by the skin deformation as its sensing principle,
other magnetic fields (including the earth magnetic field), nearby magnets, or nearby ferromagnetic
materials can influence the sensor measurements. Also crosstalk between two of our sensor mod-
ules is possible. Please confirm within the inspection period (1 month from receipt of the product)
with your application if those influences are prohibitory for your application. To counteract those
influences, please also consider that a reference sensor could be used.
• Never bend the sensor modules. When you install the sensor modules on your robot, glue them to
a sturdy and flat surface with thin double-sided sticky tape. Make sure to provide flat support to the
whole backside of the sensor module.
2 Requirements
To collect data from the sensors, a PC with a USB 2.0 port is required. Both a Windows or Linux PC can be
used, as described in the "Software Manual". However, for the simple procedure to check if your sensors are
connected correctly to your PC, as described in this manual, a Windows PC is used. The software described
in this manual was tested on Windows 7 and Windows 10.
Our sensors work with various CAN-USB converters, as described on our webpage (https://xelarobotics.
com/en/canusb-adapters). However, we recommend to use the CAN-USB/2 from ESD to achieve a higher
measurement frequency and for best compatibility. This manual (in particular Section 4.2 and 5.1) is based
on the software for the CAN-USB/2 from ESD.
The software described in the "Software Manual" is based on Python. However, other programming lan-
guages can be used both for the server (which reads out the sensor data from the CAN bus) and the client
(which uses the sensor data). It is straightforward to use other programming languages for the client, as
they only have to connect to the server. For the server, while we only provide the server in Python, other
environments can be used, as long as they are compatible with the used CAN-USB converter. For example:
• ESD provides API for .NET, C#, Python, VC, Visual Basic, BC, LabVIEW, Linux, etc. Please refer
to ESD website for more information.
• VSCOM provides API for C/C++, C#, VB.NET, Delphi and LabVIEW. Please refer to VSCOM
website for more information.
2 ©XELA Robotics