They Hear Me Rolling: Design and Characterization of a Distributed, Rolling Acoustic-Tactile Sensor

Tactile sensor design has been widely explored at the centimeter-scale; fewer explorations exist in larger scale systems with varied geometries. We present a meter-scale tactile sensor for wheeled robotic platforms based on a flexible acoustic waveguide. This sensor architecture performs contact sensing over the surface of a rotating wheel with a single transducer that is separated from the sensing surface. The design and characterization of the sensor are presented, along with a demonstration of a state-estimation framework using tactile sensor feedback to measure surface features.