Incipient Slip Detection Using Injected Vibration in Biomimetic Tactile Sensor

Abstract

In robot manipulation, the prediction of gross slip and grasp stabilization control enable complex object manipulation. To realize this, researchers have been studying the use of incipient slip, which is a local deformation phenomenon of the contact surface. However, there are many issues in terms of practicality, because the cost of distributed tactile sensors for detecting incipient slip is high and there are restrictions on the motion state of the robot. In this study, we proposed a method for detecting incipient slip by focusing on vibrotactile sensing and static stick region. In the proposed method, a vibrotactile sensor with a flexible structure and a vibration motor are used to detect the change in the stick region as a propagation characteristic of the injected vibration. In the verification experiment, the proposed method showed an incipient slip detection performance close to that of the distributed tactile sensor, and was able to detect incipient slip even in static conditions that the conventional method could not handle. The method is expected to realize robust grasping control with a low-cost tactile sensor system.