Force detectable surface covers for humanoid robots

In this paper, we herein describe force detectable surface covers for humanoid robots to realize naturally physical interaction with humans. The covers can detect various tactile and force information, such as accurate external force vector and contact positions, from a widely range of the robot body surface. First, a basic surface cover structure composed of a force-torque sensor and several touch sensors is proposed. Next, we present a design method to implement such a cover structure onto dual arms of an actual humanoid robot. Finally, from basic experiments for verifying the characteristics of the proposed force-detectable surface cover systems, it was confirmed that high measurement accuracy of a contact position and force vector is accomplished. In addition, from an application experiment, where some humans actually occur physical interference with an actual humanoid robot overlaid with the covers, it was confirmed that the capability of the covers' sensing even several contacts on several parts of robots' body is effective for realizing high level human-robot symbiosis.