Home // International Journal On Advances in Intelligent Systems, volume 14, numbers 1 and 2, 2021 // View article
Authors:
Lukas Merker
Keywords: Vibrissa; tactile sensor; surface sensing; surface reconstruction.
Abstract:
Interacting with the environment, mobile robots could benefit from advanced tactile sensors complementing optical sensors, consequently gathering overlapping information. In the animal kingdom, there are numerous examples of tactile sensors just as the vibrissae of rats. These tactile hairs enable the animals, inter alia, to detect object shapes based on few contacts. Vibrissae themselves consist of dead tissue and, thus, all sensing is performed in the support of each vibrissa. This characteristic and simple measuring structure provides an inspirational framework for developing tactile sensor concepts. Within the present paper, we take advantage of a recently developed mechanical model of a vibrissa-inspired sensor for 3D object shape scanning and reconstruction. It consists of a cylindrical, one-sided clamped bending rod, which is swept along a 3D object surface undergoing large deflections. Instead of assuming an ideal contact (no frictional effects) as in previous publications, the contact model includes Coulomb's friction. Simulating frictional scanning sweeps, the focus is on both generating the support reactions (observables) at the base of the rod theoretically and subsequently using these quantities in order to reconstruct a sequence of contact points approximating the scanned object surface. Our investigation reveals that (of course) the generated support reactions are affected by friction, but (surprisingly) the reconstruction error seems to be largely invariant against friction.
Pages: 104 to 113
Copyright: Copyright (c) to authors, 2021. Used with permission.
Publication date: December 31, 2021
Published in: journal
ISSN: 1942-2679