Leveraging Touch Sensors to Improve Mobile Manipulation

TL;DR

This paper introduces tactile-equipped end-effectors for the TIAGo robot to enhance mobile manipulation reliability and enable advanced research in touch-based learning, exploration, and force control.

Contribution

The paper presents novel tactile sensors integrated into robot end-effectors, advancing mobile manipulation capabilities and supporting new research avenues.

Findings

Improved manipulation success rates with tactile sensors

Enhanced reliability in object handling tasks

Facilitation of learning and exploration through touch

Abstract

Despite many advances in service robotics, successful and secure object manipulation on mobile platforms is still a challenge. In order to come closer to human grasping performance, it is natural to provide robots with the same capability that humans have: the sense of touch. This abstract presents novel, tactile-equipped end-effectors for the service robot TIAGo that are currently being developed. Their primary goal is to improve reliability and success of mobile manipulation, but they also enable further research in related fields such as learning by human demonstration, object exploration and force control algorithms.