Walking on TacTip toes: A tactile sensing foot for walking robots

TL;DR

This paper introduces a simple, robust tactile foot for walking robots using a high-resolution biomimetic sensor, enhancing stability and obstacle negotiation on uneven terrain.

Contribution

It presents a novel tactile foot design with design improvements, enabling stable walking and obstacle detection for legged robots on challenging terrains.

Findings

Sensor prevents robot from falling off beam

Enables walking along curved edges

Applicable to various robot sizes

Abstract

Little research into tactile feet has been done for walking robots despite the benefits such feedback could give when walking on uneven terrain. This paper describes the development of a simple, robust and inexpensive tactile foot for legged robots based on a high-resolution biomimetic TacTip tactile sensor. Several design improvements were made to facilitate tactile sensing while walking, including the use of phosphorescent markers to remove the need for internal LED lighting. The usefulness of the foot is verified on a quadrupedal robot performing a beam walking task and it is found the sensor prevents the robot falling off the beam. Further, this capability also enables the robot to walk along the edge of a curved table. This tactile foot design can be easily modified for use with any legged robot, including much larger walking robots, enabling stable walking in challenging terrain.