Soft robotics is an emerging field that yields promising results for tasks that require safe and robust interactions with the environment or with humans, such as grasping, manipulation, and human-robot interaction. Soft robots rely on intrinsically compliant components and are difficult to equip with traditional, rigid sensors which would interfere with their compliance. We propose a highly flexible tactile sensor that is low-cost and easy to manufacture while measuring contact pressures independently from 14 taxels. The sensor is built from piezoresistive fabric for highly sensitive, continuous responses and from a custom-designed flexible printed circuit board which provides a high taxel density. From these taxels, location and intensity of contact with the sensor can be inferred. In this paper, we explain the design and manufacturing of the proposed sensor, characterize its input-output relation, evaluate its effects on compliance when equipped to the silicone-based pneumatic actuators of the soft robotic RBO Hand 2, and demonstrate that the sensor provides rich and useful feedback for learning-based in-hand object recognition.
翻译:软体机器人是一个新兴领域,对于需要与环境或人类进行安全、稳健互动的任务,如捕捉、操纵和人-机器人互动等,可以产生大有希望的结果。软体机器人依靠内在兼容的部件,难以装备会干扰其合规的传统硬质传感器。我们建议采用高度灵活的触动传感器,这种传感器成本低,且易于制造,同时可以独立测量接触压力,不受14个税目的影响。传感器来自极敏感、连续反应的碎裂结构,以及定制的灵活印刷电路板,具有高分类密度。从这些分类、位置和与传感器接触的强度中可以推断出。在本文中,我们解释了拟议传感器的设计和制造,描述其输入输出关系,评价其安装到软机器人RBO手2的硅基气动动动动器时对合规的影响,并证明传感器为基于学习的实物识别提供了丰富和有用的反馈。