Active Tactile Sensing Based on Minimum-External-Sensor-Realization

Abstract

This paper discusses an active tactile sensing not only for detecting a contact point between a robot and an unknown object, but also for detecting the object shape within the working area of the robot. We define the concept of Actively-Sensible meaning that an active sensing motion can be planned for a sensing event. We also define Minimum-External-Sensor-Realization for more than two sensing events, where a removal of any of pure external sensors always disables Actively-Sensible for any sensing events. When a robot hand approaches an unknown object and grasps it stably, it is necessary to know not only contact information but also surface information of the object. We explore object-shape-sensing as well as contact-point-sensing strategies which lead to the Minimum-External-Sensor-Realization, and eventually, propose a new algorithm for both sensings without using any pure external sensor. The proposed algorithm is verified by experiments using a newly designed single fingered robotic hand.