Tactile Sensing - From Humans to Humanoids

—Starting from human ‘sense of touch’, this work reviews the state of tactile sensing in robotics. Following a brief discussion on the physiology, coding, tactile data transfer and perceptual importance of ‘sense of touch’ in humans, various design hints for robotic tactile sensing are derived. Various technologies and transduction methods used to improve the touch sense capability of robots are presented, followed by the trend and methods of developing tactile sensing arrays - for various body sites. Tactile sensing, focussed to fingertips and hands until last decade or so, has now been extended to whole body, even though many issues remain open. A discussion on various sysytem issues that keep tactile sensing away from widespread utility is also presented.

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2010
• Where: TROB
• Authors: R. S. Dahiya, Giorgio Metta, M. Valle, Giulio Sandini
• Keywords: Sensing, Tactile, TROB 2010, Various