Contact Detection and Location from Robot and Object Tracking on RGB-D Images

Abstract

Detecting contacts between a robot and the objects on the environment during manipulation activities is challenging problem even when tactile or other contact sensors are available. There are situations in which due to the location or sensitivity of the sensors contacts can be missed. In those cases a complementary sensor that could infer and locate the existence of contact from visual input in the absence of direct touch information would be of great interest.