Active Multi-Object Exploration and Recognition via Tactile Whiskers

TL;DR

This paper presents an autonomous tactile exploration system using MEMS-based whisker sensors for object discovery, contour tracing, and recognition in environments without optical data, enhancing robotic sensing capabilities.

Contribution

Introduction of a novel MEMS whisker sensor combined with a hybrid tactile exploration policy for efficient object search and recognition in unknown environments.

Findings

Hybrid exploration policy improves object discovery efficiency

Whisker sensor provides discriminative geometric features

Effective scene segmentation and object classification achieved

Abstract

Robotic exploration under uncertain environments is challenging when optical information is not available. In this paper, we propose an autonomous solution of exploring an unknown task space based on tactile sensing alone. We first designed a whisker sensor based on MEMS barometer devices. This sensor can acquire contact information by interacting with the environment non-intrusively. This sensor is accompanied by a planning technique to generate exploration trajectories by using mere tactile perception. This technique relies on a hybrid policy for tactile exploration, which includes a proactive informative path planner for object searching, and a reactive Hopf oscillator for contour tracing. Results indicate that the hybrid exploration policy can increase the efficiency of object discovery. Last, scene understanding was facilitated by segmenting objects and classification. A classifier was developed to recognize the object categories based on the geometric features collected by the whisker sensor. Such an approach demonstrates the whisker sensor, together with the tactile intelligence, can provide sufficiently discriminative features to distinguish objects.