An Anthropomorphic Robot Finger for Investigating Artificial Tactile Perception

Abstract

In this paper the design, implementation, and testing of an artificial tactile sensing system incorporating an articulated robot finger are presented. It was our primary aim in this work to set up the hardware and software tools necessary for investigating basic issues in artificial tactile perception.In the first part of the paper the criteria followed in the design of the robot finger and of its motor and sensory components are outlined.The second part of the paper deals with the problem of defining a hierarchical architecture for the control of the exploratory finger. In this context, particular attention is devoted to the description of a set of tactile subroutines that are intended to replicate some of the basic sensory motor sequences adopted by humans for tactile exploration. The main features of the high-level planner, which is supposed to supervise the execution of those tactile primitives, are also discussed.Finally, experimental results that demonstrate the capability of the robotic system of executing the previously defined tactile subroutines and of extracting specific object features are presented.

Tactile displays: Overview and recent advances

“…(1) Different mechanoreceptors (located at various depths) receive a different part of the spectrum of the surface-stress signal [23]. (2) Fine patterns with wavelength smaller than 1 mm hardly reach any receptor because of the exponential attenuation, except in the parts with very thin skin [24].…”

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“…The presence of the load produces a small capacitance change for both the air-gap capacitor and the polymer film capacitor. For the air-gap capacitor, the change arising from only the change in the gap is given by (2). For the polymer-film capacitor, the capacitance change contains contributions from the gap change as well as the permittivity change, and is given by (3), where .…”

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“…More and more advanced technology requires the robots to possess the ability of perception [1]. It is of vital importance to make artificial skin have the function of perception.…”