Development of robotic hand tactile sensing system for distributed contact force sensing in robotic dexterous multimodal grasping

Perceiving distributed tactile information during robotic dexterous grasping process is essential to improve its intelligence and automation. This paper presents a tactile sensing system for a multi-fingered robotic hand, and used to detect distributed contact forces andtactile information during robotic hand dexterous multimodal grasping applications. The tactile sensing system relies on the design of tactile sensors with multiple sensing units and is integrated onto robotic thumb, index and middle fingers, respectively. For robotic dexterous grasping, six types of grasping modes are selected and performed objects’ grasping experiments. Using the developed robotic hand tactile sensing system, the generated contact forces during grasping processes are recorded. Through analyzing the robotic hand grasp actions in each grasping mode, the characteristics of the detected tactile forces can be studied and compared, which can be used as the factor to further distinguish the different grasping modes. Therefore, our developed robotic hand tactile sensing system can provide the possibility to accurately measure the distributed contact forces during robotic hand dexterous manipulation applications, and be used for analyzing the relationship between tactile information characteristics and grasping mode movements.