Abstract
The paper describes the development of a mesh waveguide sensor capable of measuring pressure force at the plantar interface. The uniqueness of the system is in its batch fabrication process, which involves a microfabrication molding technique with poly(dimethylsiloxane)(PDMS) as the optical medium. The pressure sensor consists of an array of optical waveguides lying in perpendicular rows and columns separated by elastomeric pads. A map of normal stress was constructed based on observed macro bending which causes intensity attenuation from the physical deformation of two adjacent perpendicular waveguides. In this paper, optical and mechanical analysis of the bend loss will be presented. We will also present the results using a two-layer neural network system for force and image construction of fourteen different shape patterns and its corresponding four different applied forces.