Dynamic tactile sensing

Abstract

Dynamic tactile sensing is an important capability for interacting with the world to identify textures and identify contact events such as objects making and breaking contact with the skin and rolling or slipping on the fingers. It is also used for identifying friction between the fingers and a grasped object and regulating the grasp force accordingly. Humans are endowed with multiple types of mechanoreceptors capable of detecting dynamic events with frequencies in the tens or hundreds of Hz. Increasingly, robots are also being equipped with tactile sensors capable of detecting dynamic phenomena, using a variety of different transducers depending on application-specific design considerations. Advances in electronics have made it possible to do the requisite amplification, signal processing and communication within the hand, with improved performance and greatly reduced wiring in comparison to early efforts.