An Innovative Whisker Tactile Sensor for Intelligent Robotic Grasping

For intelligent grasping, robots required a gripper that can estimate the exact required grasping force for individual object and should be capable of recognising object slippage while grasping. In this project, a novel design of a whisker tactile sensor is proposed to detect the incipient slip when robotic gripper is grasping an object. This will enable robotic grasping actuator to hold a light and soft object as well as a heavy object without slipping or damaging it. The designed whisker tactile sensor consists of fins which changes angle due to the friction when the object starts slipping. The change of angle of fins changes the angle of the mirror attached, which will provide a signal to photo transistor by changing intensity of incident light. The gripping force will be increased proportionally with the detection of slip of the object. Using machine control mechanism, it is desired to identify incipient slip and to adjust the grasping force as required.