We present the design and realization of a conformable tactile sensor skin(patent pending). The skin is organized as a network of self-contained modules consisting of tiny pressure-sensitive elements which communicate through a serial bus. By adding or removing modules it is possible to adjust the area covered by the skin as well as the number (and density) of tactile elements. The skin is therefore highly modular and thus intrinsically scalable. Moreover, because the substrate on which the modules are mounted is sufficiently pliable to be folded and stiff enough to be cut, it is possible to freely distribute the individual tactile elements. A tactile skin composed of multiple modules can also be installed on curved surfaces. Due to their easy configurability we call our sensors "cut-and-paste tactile sensors." We describe a prototype implementation of the skin on a humanoid robot.
We present realization of a humanoid which can lift a heavy object by whole body contact. Most humanoid motions are limited to the posture of the end-effectors only landing. In principle these humanoids can not do natural motion. If a humanoid robot is allowed arbitrary contact with the surrounding objects, it can improve the performance and operate a heavier object. We propose a "whole body contact motion" of a humanoid robot. It is defined as a control of contact state of a humanoid robot which has the distributed tactile sensors. We develop conformable and scalable tactile skin and an adult-size humanoid with a smooth surfaces for arbitrary contact. We install the skin on the entire surfaces of the humanoid. Finally we describe the humanoid lifting a 30kg box by tactile feedback.
This paper presents a system for capturing human movement and tactile data and methods for analyzing this data. We cannot fully capture the essence of motion without tactile information, and sometimes the lack of such information causes critical problems. To achieve a better understanding of motion behavior, we developed a wearable motion capture suit with fullbody tactile sensors. We also developed a motion sensor which can estimate its orientation with its inner CPU. We also built a tactile sensor module which can fit many kinds of body shapes.With this system, we can measure a user's movement and tactile information simultaneously. By integrating tactile data with motion data, we can achieve many kinds of meaningful insights. We demonstrate the effectiveness of this system with experiments. We captured two motions: stretching after sitting on a chair and laying down on a bed. By recognizing the contact point from the tactile data and fitting it into the environment, we were able to estimate the motion trajectories.
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