Tactile Model O: Fabrication and Testing of a 3D-Printed, Three-Fingered Tactile Robot Hand.

Jasper W James,Nathan F Lepora,Alex Church,Luke Cramphorn

doi:10.1089/soro.2020.0019

Abstract

Bringing tactile sensation to robotic hands will allow for more effective grasping, along with a wide range of benefits of human-like touch. Here, we present a three-dimensional-printed, three-fingered tactile robot hand comprising an OpenHand ModelO customized to house a TacTip soft biomimetic tactile sensor in the distal phalanx of each finger. We expect that combining the grasping capabilities of this underactuated hand with sophisticated tactile sensing will result in an effective platform for robot hand research-the Tactile Model O (T-MO). The design uses three JeVois machine vision systems, with each comprising a miniature camera in the tactile fingertip with a processing module in the base of the hand. To evaluate the capabilities of the T-MO, we benchmark its grasping performance by using the Gripper Assessment Benchmark on the Yale-CMU-Berkeley object set. Tactile sensing capabilities are evaluated by performing tactile object classification on 26 objects and predicting whether a grasp will successfully lift each object. Results are consistent with the state of the art, taking advantage of advances in deep learning applied to tactile image outputs. Overall, this work demonstrates that the T-MO is an effective platform for robot hand research and we expect it to open up a range of applications in autonomous object handling.

Highlights

Tactile afferents in our hands provide information about the state of a grasp and, crucially, whether the grasp is failing.[1]
We expect that combining the grasping capabilities of this underactuated hand with sophisticated tactile sensing will result in an effective platform for robot hand research—the Tactile Model O (T-MO)
This work demonstrates that the T-MO is an effective platform for robot hand research and we expect it to open up a range of applications in autonomous object handling

Summary

Introduction

Tactile afferents in our hands provide information about the state of a grasp and, crucially, whether the grasp is failing.[1] bringing tactile sensation to robotic hands will allow for more effective grasping, along with a wide range of benefits of human-like touch. Tactile-enabled robots will be able to operate autonomously and safely in cluttered and unknown environments in such varied situations as health and social care or industrial manufacture.[2] Tactile sensing has been demonstrated to be useful in multiple areas of robotics, including single-point sensors such as whiskers, large area sensors, and high-resolution fingertips.[3] significant scientific and social barriers remain that prevent tactile robot hands from becoming commonplace. Two GelSight optical tactile sensors were integrated onto a two-finger parallel gripper and used for slip detection.[18]

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