Inter-finger Small Object Manipulation With DenseTact Optical Tactile Sensor

The ability to grasp and manipulate small objects in cluttered environments remains a significant challenge. This letter introduces a novel approach that utilizes a tactile sensor-equipped gripper with eight degrees of freedom to overcome these limitations. We employ DenseTact 2.0 for the gripper, enabling precise control and improved grasp success rates, particularly for small objects ranging from 5 mm to 25 mm. Our integrated strategy incorporates the robot arm, gripper, and sensor to manipulate and orient small objects for subsequent classification, effectively. We contribute a specialized dataset designed for classifying these objects based on tactile sensor output and a new control algorithm for in-hand orientation tasks. Our system demonstrates 88% of successful grasp and successfully classified small objects in cluttered scenarios.