Abstract
We proposed the "Tactile Crawler", it is optical distributed tactile sensor system suited to crawler vehicle robots. To apply a number of tactile sensors to the crawler track, an electric wiring is a big problem because it rotates continuously. The Tactile Crawler senses inclination distribution of shoes by the pairs of a LED and a photo detector attached ou the iuside frame, and estimates contact locations and tangential forces of the crawler. It realizes evaluation of attitude stability and slip rate of crawler on unknown off-road, e.g. rubbles. It also estimates contact shapes and frictional information of its running surface by using kinetic information together. We performed the easy experiment to acquire contact location of the crawler on a step using the Tactile Crawler of prototype, and the availability of the Tactile Crawler was confirmed.
