Magnetic-based tactile sensors for dexterous robotic manipulation INVITED

Author / Creator

MMM 2020 (2020)

Conferences

MMM 2020 B2: Interdisciplinary Applications I (2020)

Available as

Online

Summary

A robotic sense of touch would increase the capabilities of robots in a variety of tasks and applications; in particular, it will permit safe and robust handling of different kinds of objects in se...

A robotic sense of touch would increase the capabilities of robots in a variety of tasks and applications; in particular, it will permit safe and robust handling of different kinds of objects in several scenarios: industrial manufacturing, precision agriculture, food processing, healthcare, public spaces and challenging environments such as nuclear sites or space missions. In the talk I will present a novel concept for the realization of tactile sensors, based on magentic technology. Using this idea, we have developed different types of tactile sensors with different sensing characteristics, that can be used in different robotic applications, from safe object grasping to texture analysis of fruits. Our early work on tactile robot fingertips [1,2], which at the time of publication had the best performance in terms of sensitivity, initiated a world-wide trend of using magnetics-based sensor solutions for embedded tactile/force sensing. The latest advances include: a multi-curved robot fingertip covered with a soft electronic skin that can measure 3D contact forces on multiple distributed contact points, at high spatial resolution and sensitivity [3], a soft miniaturized electronic cilia (200 microns diameter) that can measure contact forces as small as 333 micronewtons [4], a highly-robust and highly-sensitive flat tactile sensor that can be easily integrated on industrial robotic grippers and has become a commercial product [5].References: [1] L. Jamone, G. Metta, F. Nori and G. Sandini, James: A Humanoid Robot Acting over an Unstructured World. IEEE-RAS International Conference on Humanoid Robots (Humanoids). Genova, Italy., 2006. [2] L. Jamone, L. Natale, G. Metta and G. Sandini, Highly sensitive soft tactile sensors for an anthropomorphic robotic hand. IEEE Sensors Journal 15(8):4226-4233, 2015. [3] T. P. Tomo, S. Schmitz, W. Wong, H. Kristanto, S. Somlor, J. Hwang, L. Jamone and S. Sugano, Covering a Robot Fingertip with uSkin: a Soft Electronic Skin with Distributed 3-axis Force Sensitive Elements for Robot Hands. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 3(1):124-131, 2018. [4] P. Ribeiro, M. A. Khan, A. Alfadhel, J. Kosel, F. Franco, S. Cardoso, A. Bernardino, A. Schmitz, J. Santos-Victor and L. Jamone, Bio-inspired ciliary force sensor for robotic platforms. IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 2(2):971-976, 2017. [5] T. P. Tomo, M. Regoli, A. Schmitz, L. Natale, H. Kristanto, S. Somlor, L. Jamone, G. Metta, S. Sugano, A New Silicone Structure for uSkin-a Soft, Distributed, Digital 3-axis Skin Sensor-and its Integration on the Humanoid Robot iCub, IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters 3(3): 2584-2591, 2018.

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