Advances in tactile sensing and touch based humanrobot interaction

The problem of “providing robots with the sense of touch” is fundamental in order to develop the next generations of robots capable of interacting with humans in different contexts: in daily housekeeping activities, as working partners or as caregivers, just to name a few. In a low-level perspective, through tactile sensing it is possible to measure or estimate physical properties of manipulated or touched objects, whereas feedback from tactile sensors may enable the detection and safe control of the interaction between the robot and objects or humans. In a high-level perspective, touch-based cognitive processes can be entailed by developing robot body self-awareness capabilities and by differentiating the “self” from the “external space”, thereby opening new relevant problems in Robotics. The objective of this Workshop is to present and discuss the most recent achievements in the area of tactile sensing starting from the technological aspects, up to the application problems where tactile feedback plays a fundamental role. The Workshop will cover, but will not be limited, to the following three areas: 1. Technological aspects of robot artificial skin design and implementation including advanced transduction devices, large-scale sensing technologies, embedded electronics, system level solutions, etc. 2. Software and algorithmic aspects related to tactile data processing: software engineering, robot control, touch-based reactive behaviors, touch classification, object recognition, etc. 3. Cognitive issues related, but not limited, to skin-based behaviors and task level control, including: humanrobot interaction, learning and assistive technologies, etc.