A Survey of Vision-Based Tactile Sensors: Hardware, Algorithm, Application, and Future Direction

Since vision-based tactile sensors (VBTSs) were first proposed and developed, they have attracted more and more attention in recent years. This article aims to provide a comprehensive review of VBTSs, with emphasis on their algorithms and applications. First, I briefly introduce the concept, principle, and prototype of VBTSs. Then, I illustrate the deployment of VBTSs into robotic systems and discuss the state-of-the-art progress of VBTS-based robotic grasping and manipulation, then outline the main functions of VBTSs, and provide a systematic survey on their algorithms, with a focus on deep learning and computer vision. Furthermore, I summarize the applications of VBTSs in practical scenarios. Finally, I discuss key research challenges and envision future directions for VBTSs.