ABSTRACT
This chapter devotes to the analysis of the physical and conceptual link between robot hands and intelligence: tactile sensing. It presents two possible approaches to the design of contact-sensing devices for robot end-effectors, skinlike and intrinsic, provide a brief survey of the state of the art, and illustrates respective pros and cons; in some cases, sensors integrating both principles are shown to obtain synergistic results. The chapter discusses the most common technologies employed for building skinlike tactile sensors. An IT sensor consists of a six-axis force-torque sensor situated inside the fingertip of the robot end-effector, whose surface, unlike a skinlike sensor surface, is not sensorized. The basic contact mechanics underlying intrinsic tactile sensing can be implemented in rather simple devices. Since the application of force-torque measurements to tactile sensing was only proposed in 1985, not many sensors have been designed thus far to fit the fingertips of a robot hand.
