The acquisition, processing, and use of tactile sensor data in robot control

Abstract

Robots are machines capable of interacting with their environments in intelligent manners. In order for such capabilities to exist, these machines must be able to act relative to their environments, sense qualities about both themselves and their environments, and make decisions guided by the sensor input. This dissertation is directed toward developing a sense of touch for robot systems. Robot senses are discussed and a classification scheme developed with particular attention paid to the definition of tactile sensors. Current tactile sensors in use in laboratories are presented along with the design of the sensor developed in this work. Issues surrounding the response characteristics of the sensor and static and dynamic tactile image processing are presented and several experiments discussed. An approach to the utilization of sensory information in high-level control provides the topic for the chapter on schemas. Conclusions drawn from this work as well as directions for future research in tactile sensation are provided in the final section and appendices.