A survey of visuotactile sensing technologies for robotic manipulation

Abstract

Thanks to the high spatial resolution and multi-mode tactile sensing, visuotactile sensing technology has been widely applied to various robotic manipulation tasks, such as robotic active perception, pose estimation, and in-hand manipulation.Firstly, the current mainstream visuotactile sensing technologies based on sensing principles were summarized, which could be mainly divided into three categories: GelSight-type visuotactile sensors, binocular (multi-view) visuotactile sensors, and other types.Meanwhile, the sensing methods of different tactile sensing modes were further summarized, including contact surface 3D geometry, force/torque, and sliding.Furthermore, focusing on the field of robot operation, the specific application scenarios of visuotactile sensors were discussed.Finally, future work of the visuotactile sensing technology and how they can be further applied to robotic dexterous manipulation tasks were given.

Keywords

• visuotactile sensor;robotic tactile perception;robotic dexterous manipulation