Sensorized Soft Skin for Dexterous Robotic Hands

TL;DR

This paper introduces a soft, sensorized tactile skin for humanoid robotic hands, enhancing their dexterity and tactile sensing, enabling firmer grasps and improved object manipulation.

Contribution

It presents a novel multi-material 3D printed soft skin that maintains hand dexterity while adding tactile sensing capabilities.

Findings

Soft skin enables firmer grasps

Piezo-resistive sensors improve tactile sensing

Design preserves robot's range of motion

Abstract

Conventional industrial robots often use two-fingered grippers or suction cups to manipulate objects or interact with the world. Because of their simplified design, they are unable to reproduce the dexterity of human hands when manipulating a wide range of objects. While the control of humanoid hands evolved greatly, hardware platforms still lack capabilities, particularly in tactile sensing and providing soft contact surfaces. In this work, we present a method that equips the skeleton of a tendon-driven humanoid hand with a soft and sensorized tactile skin. Multi-material 3D printing allows us to iteratively approach a cast skin design which preserves the robot's dexterity in terms of range of motion and speed. We demonstrate that a soft skin enables firmer grasps and piezoresistive sensor integration enhances the hand's tactile sensing capabilities.