THESIS
2020
xvi, 104 pages : color illustrations ; 30 cm
Abstract
As robots evolve from executing hard programmed procedures to intelligently interacting
with environments and human beings in both industry and domestic scenarios, equipping
robots with the ability to perceive the environment has been an urge yet a challenge
for developing more collaboratively friendly robots. Among multiple essential artificial
sensations for modern robots including vision, sense of touch, auditory sense, artificial
sense of touch provides robots with physical interaction signals in a direct, more accurate,
and finer fashion plays a critical role in robotic tasks of exploration and manipulation.
Vision-based tactile sensors thrive as a competitive branch of tactile sensors for their
various superiorities. In this thesis, we illustrate a full spectrum of the dev...[
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As robots evolve from executing hard programmed procedures to intelligently interacting
with environments and human beings in both industry and domestic scenarios, equipping
robots with the ability to perceive the environment has been an urge yet a challenge
for developing more collaboratively friendly robots. Among multiple essential artificial
sensations for modern robots including vision, sense of touch, auditory sense, artificial
sense of touch provides robots with physical interaction signals in a direct, more accurate,
and finer fashion plays a critical role in robotic tasks of exploration and manipulation.
Vision-based tactile sensors thrive as a competitive branch of tactile sensors for their
various superiorities. In this thesis, we illustrate a full spectrum of the development of
vision-based tactile sensors including designs, fabrications, signal interpretation methodologies,
and system integration, with an emphasis on applications to robotic manipulation
and human-robot interaction. As the outcomes, we present both high-performance tactile
sensors that are innovative in terms of designs and functionalities, and cutting-edge
algorithms on the extraction of tactile information. Specifically, we present an ultra-thin
and 3-dimensional force sensible vision-based tactile sensor that draws inspiration from
compound eye structure that is existing in arthropod animals' eyes. Conceptual design
and theoretical endorsement of the measurement ability are presented. Fabrication methods
of essential components including the wafer-level apposition compound eye structure
and dense trackable pattern embedded elastomer ( artificial skin layer) are introduced in
detail. An optimization-based image stitching and blending framework are proposed for the multiple fields of view (FOVs) generated from the imaging system using the compound
eye structure as its lenses. Moreover, to show the potentials of vision-based tactile
sensors in human-robot interactions, we present a dense and full-body vision-based tactile
sensing augmented robotic arm with design principle, formulation of the perspective projection
inside the imaging system for contact information mapping. Afterward, we turn to
the topic of tactile information interpretation. A Helmholtz-Hodge decomposition-based
contact force estimation method is proposed to recover contact force and torque from a
deformation vector field acquired from a vision-based tactile sensor. This method is applicable
to a wide range of tactile array sensors. At a higher level in terms of information
abstraction, we developed a contact event detection and prediction framework based on
dense tactile inputs for dexterous and reactive manipulations. Extensive experiments and
evaluations are conducted for each work in this thesis. we conclude this thesis together
with a discussion, illustration of limitations, and proposition of future works.
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