Tac3D: A Novel Vision-based Tactile Sensor for Measuring Forces Distribution and Estimating Friction Coefficient Distribution
This addresses the problem of real-time force perception for robotics and grasping applications, offering a low-cost and efficient solution, though it appears incremental as it builds on existing vision-based tactile sensing methods.
The authors tackled the challenge of measuring contact force distribution accurately in real-time by proposing Tac3D, a vision-based tactile sensor that measures 3D contact surface shape and force distribution, and used this to estimate friction coefficient distribution, enabling reconstruction of 3D object models with friction data.
The importance of force perception in interacting with the environment was proven years ago. However, it is still a challenge to measure the contact force distribution accurately in real-time. In order to break through this predicament, we propose a new vision-based tactile sensor, the Tac3D sensor, for measuring the three-dimensional contact surface shape and contact force distribution. In this work, virtual binocular vision is first applied to the tactile sensor, which allows the Tac3D sensor to measure the three-dimensional tactile information in a simple and efficient way and has the advantages of simple structure, low computational costs, and inexpensive. Then, we used contact surface shape and force distribution to estimate the friction coefficient distribution in contact region. Further, combined with the global position of the tactile sensor, the 3D model of the object with friction coefficient distribution is reconstructed. These reconstruction experiments not only demonstrate the excellent performance of the Tac3D sensor but also imply the possibility to optimize the action planning in grasping based on the friction coefficient distribution of the object.