Multifunctional transducer

Several parameters of a small region of a muscle tissue or other object, can be simultaneously measured using with minimal traumatizing or damage of the object, a trifunctional transducer which can determine the force applied by a muscle fiber, the displacement of the fiber, and the change in thickness of the fiber. The transducer has three legs with inner ends joined together and outer ends formed to piece the tissue and remain within it. Two of the legs are relatively stiff, to measure force applied by the tissue, and a third leg is relatively flexible to measure displacement of the tissue relative to one or both stiff legs, and with the three legs lying in a common plane so that the force and displacement measurements all relate to the same direction of muscle movements. A flexible loop is attached to one of the stiff legs to measure changes in muscle thickness, with the upper end of the loop fixed to the leg and the lower end of the loop bearing against the surface of the tissue and being free to slide on the leg