A robotic tactile perception system concept

An experimental robotic tactile system is under development to characterize and identify three-dimensional (3-D) objects through a procedure of active sequential exploration. The experimental setup is described, and a data fusion technique for precise object identification is presented. Preliminary test results demonstrate that overlapping tactile exploration allows recovery from sensor/target misalignment, enables improved data correlation, and consequently produces a more precise 3-D object identification. Only quasi-static (static kinesthetic plus robot kinematic) tactile sensing has been considered, with the objective of better establishing global 3-D geometric features of the target object.<
>