A tactile sensing for estimating the position and orientation of a joint-axis of a linked object

This paper describes a tactile sensing to estimate the position and orientation of a joint-axis of a linked object. This tactile sensing is useful when a multi-jointed multi-fingered robotic hand manipulates a tool which has a joint. This estimation requires sensing of the location of a contact point and the direction of an edge of the tool as contact information measured by a robotic fingertip. A conventional hard fingertip with a force sensor can measure only the location of a contact point. In contrast, we have already developed a robotic fingertip with a force sensor and a soft skin, and it can measure not only the location of a contact point but also the direction of an edge of an object. The estimation of a joint-axis of a linked object is demonstrated by using the soft fingertip.