Robotic Taction for Industrial Assembly

Assembly-line tasks were studied in order to acquire realistic estimates of requisite gripper and finger touch-sen sor design parameters. This was done in the context of noted time-and-motion variables, object configuration, weight and other physical characteristics, and any perceived requirements having to do with speed, accuracy, and delicacy. Small- and medium-sized parts assem bly was used to estimate requisite tac tile-pad-array size, resolution, and sensitivity. For each task studied, esti mates were also made for gripper con figuration and for overall difficulty of achieving the technology required. The estimated tactile-array, spatial-resolu tion needs are surprisingly small for a large variety of industrial assembly tasks. Arrays of no more than 8 X 8 pressure-sensitive points with interpoint spacing of 0.1 in and capable of sensing slippage appear to promise consider able capability. Such arrays, placed on two-jawed grippers and three-fingered anthropomorphic hands are concluded to be able to permit robotic replacement of humans in more than 80% of the assembly tasks studied.