A Robotic Opto-tactile Sensor for Assessing Object Surface Texture

This paper presents the design construction and working principle of a newly developed opto-tactile sensor for object surface assessment in robotic applications. The sensor provides information about surface texture and this can be used to assist in quality assurance and object recognition tasks. Surface texture causes flexing of protrusions on the sensor surface which in turn rotates a small mirror within the sensor. This rotation is measured optically as a variation in light intensity transmitted between two optical fibers. A mathematical relationship between these light intensity changes and geometrical parameters of the surface texture has been developed. The sensor has been fabricated and tested on a number of different surface textures and preliminary results of sensor output for differing textures are presented. It is envisaged that the sensor will be integrated into a robot system or other intelligent machine to assist with object recognition and evaluation of surface texture