Design of a Five-Fingered Hand with Full-Fingered Tactile Sensors Using Conductive Filaments and Its Application to Bending after Insertion Motion

TL;DR

This paper presents a robotic finger with full tactile sensing using conductive filament-based flexible epidermis, enabling contact point estimation and bending motion after insertion, demonstrated through tool use experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel flexible epidermis with conductive filaments for full-finger tactile sensing and contact estimation in robotic hands.

Findings

Effective contact point estimation achieved.

Successful bending motion after insertion demonstrated.

Enhanced tool manipulation capabilities.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to construct a contact point estimation system for the both side of a finger, and to realize a motion of bending the finger after inserting the finger into a tool (hereinafter referred to as the bending after insertion motion). In order to know the contact points of the full finger including the joints, we propose to fabricate a nerve inclusion flexible epidermis by combining a flexible epidermis and a nerve line made of conductive filaments, and estimate the contact position from the change of resistance of the nerve line. A nerve inclusion flexible epidermis attached to a thin fingered robotic hand was combined with a twin-armed robot and tool use experiments were conducted. The contact information can be used for tool use, confirming the effectiveness of the proposed method.