Related papers: A Magnetic-Actuated Vision-Based Whisker Array for…

Perceiving the environment through touch is important for robots to reach in cluttered environments, but devising a way to sense without disturbing objects is challenging. This work presents the design and modelling of whisker-inspired…

Perception using whisker-inspired tactile sensors currently faces a major challenge: the lack of active control in robots based on direct contact information from the whisker. To accurately reconstruct object contours, it is crucial for the…

Robotic exploration under uncertain environments is challenging when optical information is not available. In this paper, we propose an autonomous solution of exploring an unknown task space based on tactile sensing alone. We first designed…

Here we propose and investigate a novel vibrissal tactile sensor - the TacWhisker array - based on modifying a 3D-printed optical cutaneous (fingertip) tactile sensor - the TacTip. Two versions are considered: a static TacWhisker array…

Tactile perception is an essential ability of intelligent robots in interaction with their surrounding environments. This perception as an intermediate level acts between sensation and action and has to be defined properly to generate…

This work details the design of a novel two finger robot gripper with multiple Gelsight based optical-tactile sensors covering the inner surface of the hand. The multiple Gelsight sensors can gather the surface topology of the object from…

Aquatic mammals, such as pinnipeds, utilize their whiskers to detect and discriminate objects and analyze water movements, inspiring the development of robotic whiskers for sensing contacts, surfaces, and water flows. We present the design…

Humans display the remarkable ability to sense the world through tools and other held objects. For example, we are able to pinpoint impact locations on a held rod and tell apart different textures using a rigid probe. In this work, we…

In general, robotic dexterous hands are equipped with various sensors for acquiring multimodal contact information such as position, force, and pose of the grasped object. This multi-sensor-based design adds complexity to the robotic…

Monitoring the state of contact is essential for robotic devices, especially grippers that implement gecko-inspired adhesives where intimate contact is crucial for a firm attachment. However, due to the lack of deformable sensors, few have…

Bio-inspired whisker sensors are employed in diverse applications such as fluid-flow sensing, texture analysis, and environmental exploration. However, existing designs often face challenges related to durability, fabrication complexity,…

One of the most important object properties that humans and robots perceive through touch is hardness. This paper investigates information-theoretic active sampling strategies for sample-efficient hardness classification with vision-based…

Can a robot grasp an unknown object without seeing it? In this paper, we present a tactile-sensing based approach to this challenging problem of grasping novel objects without prior knowledge of their location or physical properties. Our…

Whisker-like touch sensors offer unique advantages for short-range perception in environments where visual and long-range sensing are unreliable, such as confined, cluttered, or low-visibility settings. This paper presents a framework for…

Tiny flying robots hold great potential for search-and-rescue, safety inspections, and environmental monitoring, but their small size limits conventional sensing-especially with poor-lighting, smoke, dust or reflective obstacles. Inspired…

While visuomotor policy learning has advanced robotic manipulation, precisely executing contact-rich tasks remains challenging due to the limitations of vision in reasoning about physical interactions. To address this, recent work has…

The potential of large tactile arrays to improve robot perception for safe operation in human-dominated environments and of high-resolution tactile arrays to enable human-level dexterous manipulation is well accepted. However, the increase…

External collisions to robot actuators typically pose risks to grasping circular objects. This work presents a vision-based sensing module capable of detecting collisions to maintain stable grasping with a soft gripper system. The system…

Collocated tactile sensing is a fundamental enabling technology for dexterous manipulation. However, deformable sensors introduce complex dynamics between the robot, grasped object, and environment that must be considered for fine…

Tactile sensing represents a crucial technique that can enhance the performance of robotic manipulators in various tasks. This work presents a novel bioinspired neuromorphic vision-based tactile sensor that uses an event-based camera to…