TY - JOUR
T1 - Methods and technologies for the implementation of large-scale robot tactile sensors
AU - Schmitz, Alexander
AU - Maiolino, Perla
AU - Maggiali, Marco
AU - Natale, Lorenzo
AU - Cannata, Giorgio
AU - Metta, Giorgio
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received January 13, 2011; revised January 13, 2011; accepted March 16, 2011. Date of publication May 24, 2011; date of current version June 9, 2011. This paper was recommended for publication by Associate Editor K. Hosoda and Editor W. K. Chung upon evaluation of the reviewers’ comments. This work was supported by the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/20072013) under Grant 231500 (project ROBOSKIN) and Grant 215843 (project Poeticon).
PY - 2011/6
Y1 - 2011/6
N2 - Even though the sense of touch is crucial for humans, most humanoid robots lack tactile sensing. While a large number of sensing technologies exist, it is not trivial to incorporate them into a robot. We have developed a compliant skin for humanoids that integrates a distributed pressure sensor based on capacitive technology. The skin is modular and can be deployed on nonflat surfaces. Each module scans locally a limited number of tactile-sensing elements and sends the data through a serial bus. This is a critical advantage as it reduces the number of wires. The resulting system is compact and has been successfully integrated into three different humanoid robots. We have performed tests that show that the sensor has favorable characteristics and implemented algorithms to compensate the hysteresis and drift of the sensor. Experiments with the humanoid robot iCub prove that the sensors can be used to grasp unmodeled, fragile objects.
AB - Even though the sense of touch is crucial for humans, most humanoid robots lack tactile sensing. While a large number of sensing technologies exist, it is not trivial to incorporate them into a robot. We have developed a compliant skin for humanoids that integrates a distributed pressure sensor based on capacitive technology. The skin is modular and can be deployed on nonflat surfaces. Each module scans locally a limited number of tactile-sensing elements and sends the data through a serial bus. This is a critical advantage as it reduces the number of wires. The resulting system is compact and has been successfully integrated into three different humanoid robots. We have performed tests that show that the sensor has favorable characteristics and implemented algorithms to compensate the hysteresis and drift of the sensor. Experiments with the humanoid robot iCub prove that the sensors can be used to grasp unmodeled, fragile objects.
KW - Capacitance measurement
KW - force and tactile sensing
KW - grasping
KW - humanoid robots
KW - robot tactile systems
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U2 - 10.1109/TRO.2011.2132930
DO - 10.1109/TRO.2011.2132930
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79958772671
SN - 1552-3098
VL - 27
SP - 389
EP - 400
JO - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
JF - IEEE Transactions on Robotics
IS - 3
M1 - 5771603
ER -