How to create a "splitted" tug-of-war?

Question

To accomplish this idea the force made by one team while pulling the rope is measured by a spring sensor. This data is sent to a motor or actuator on the other side in order to respond accordingly: to pull if the data received is bigger than the force currently made by the team or to push otherwise. The same process is followed for the other team.
Do you know a spring scale whose output can be read by a computer and a motor / actuator that can be controlled by a computer (and according to the readings given by the spring scale)?

Answer 1

It would be easier to measure the angular position of the winch at both ends and control the torque of each motor to match angular position. The angular direction will be the opposite at both ends. When one winch is pulling in cable, the other one is paying out cable, while the torque on both ends is the same (but also opposite in direction).

This may be more of a complex control loop problem than you realize, but it should be fun trying. Besides, shaft torque sensors and load cells (the thing you really wanted in the first place) are very expensive ($1000+) compared with angle sensors (as cheap as a few $ -- even with a microcontroller to read them and compute the angle). You can also indirectly measure motor torque by monitoring current (also very cheap to do).

BTW: IMO it's a cool idea -- "remote" tug-o-war

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