Tactile Sensing and Control of Robotic Manipulator Integrating Fiber Bragg Grating Strain-Sensor
Abstract
Tactile sensing is an instrumental modality of robotic manipulation, as it provides information that is not accessible via remote sensors such as cameras or lidars. Touch is particularly crucial in unstructured environments, where the robot's internal representation of manipulated objects is uncertain. In this study we present the sensorization of an existing artificial hand, with the aim to achieve fine control of robotic limbs and perception of object's physical properties. Tactile feedback is conveyed by means of a soft sensor integrated at the fingertip of a robotic hand. The sensor consists of an optical fiber, housing Fiber Bragg Gratings (FBGs) transducers, embedded into a soft polymeric material integrated on a rigid hand. Through several tasks involving grasps of different objects in various conditions, the ability of the system to acquire information is assessed. Results show that a classifier based on the sensor outputs of the robotic hand is capable of accurately detecting both size and rigidity of the operated objects (99.36 and 100% accuracy, respectively). Furthermore, the outputs provide evidence of the ability to grab fragile objects without breakage or slippage e and to perform dynamic manipulative tasks, that involve the adaptation of fingers position based on the grasped objects' condition.
Additional Information
© 2019 Massari, Oddo, Sinibaldi, Detry, Bowkett and Carpenter. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. Received: 01 November 2018; Accepted: 04 March 2019; Published: 05 April 2019. Author Contributions: LM, CO, and KC conceived the sensorized hand. LM and KC realized the sensorized hand. ES supported the design by means of engineering tools and contributed to data interpretation. LM, CO, ES, and KC designed the experimental protocols. LM, RD, and KC performed the experiments. LM, RD, and JB analyzed the data. LM, CO, ES, and KC discussed the results. LM, CO, and KC wrote the paper. CO and KC supervised the study. The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Part of the research described in this paper was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (80NM0018D0004). Furthermore, this project received seed funding from the Dubai Future Foundation through Guaana.com open research platform and from the Italian Ministry of Education, Universities and Research within the Smart Cities and Social Innovation Under 30 program through the PARLOMA Project (SIN_00132).Attached Files
Published - fnbot-13-00008.pdf
Supplemental Material - 4460978.zip
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 95214
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20190503-141935399
- NASA/JPL/Caltech
- 80NM0018D0004
- NASA
- Dubai Future Foundation
- SIN_00132
- Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Università e della Ricerca (MIUR)
- Created
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2019-05-03Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-16Created from EPrint's last_modified field