Short Range Capacitive Proximity Sensing

In this paper we investigate a short range capacitive proximity sensor as complementary sensor system in situations, where conventional optical based sensor systems have short comings, e.g., due to space requirements. In the presented collision avoidance scenario it can be used even without any vision or Lidar based sensor system. Our sensor is capable of detecting humans and objects made of conductive and nonconductive materials in short range surrounding of the robot. The sensing range can be tailored according to the needs of the application and robot. The sensor front end of the capacitive proximity sensor provides full flexibility to be attached on rounded surfaces. Due to the sensing principle it can even be mounted underneath the surface. In addition, the presented capacitive proximity sensor is fully supported by the Robot Operating System (ROS) to be utilized on a broad variety of robot platforms.