Advances in Compliance Detection: Novel Models Using Vision-Based Tactile Sensors

Compliance is a critical parameter for describing objects in engineering, agriculture, and biomedical applications. Traditional compliance detection methods are limited by their lack of portability and scalability, rely on specialized, often expensive equipment, and are unsuitable for robotic applications. Moreover, existing neural network-based approaches using vision-based tactile sensors still suffer from insufficient prediction accuracy. In this paper, we propose two models based on Long-term Recurrent Convolutional Networks (LRCNs) and Transformer architectures that leverage RGB tactile images and other information captured by the vision-based sensor GelSight to predict compliance metrics accurately. We validate the performance of these models using multiple metrics and demonstrate their effectiveness in accurately estimating compliance. The proposed models exhibit significant performance improvement over the baseline. Additionally, we investigated the correlation between sensor compliance and object compliance estimation, which revealed that objects that are harder than the sensor are more challenging to estimate.

ACROSS: A Deformation-Based Cross-Modal Representation for Robotic Tactile Perception

Tactile perception is essential for human interaction with the environment and is becoming increasingly crucial in robotics. Tactile sensors like the BioTac mimic human fingertips and provide detailed interaction data. Despite its utility in applications like slip detection and object identification, this sensor is now deprecated, making many existing valuable datasets obsolete. However, recreating similar datasets with newer sensor technologies is both tedious and time-consuming. Therefore, it is crucial to adapt these existing datasets for use with new setups and modalities. In response, we introduce ACROSS, a novel framework for translating data between tactile sensors by exploiting sensor deformation information. We demonstrate the approach by translating BioTac signals into the DIGIT sensor. Our framework consists of first converting the input signals into 3D deformation meshes. We then transition from the 3D deformation mesh of one sensor to the mesh of another, and finally convert the generated 3D deformation mesh into the corresponding output space. We demonstrate our approach to the most challenging problem of going from a low-dimensional tactile representation to a high-dimensional one. In particular, we transfer the tactile signals of a BioTac sensor to DIGIT tactile images. Our approach enables the continued use of valuable datasets and the exchange of data between groups with different setups.

Transferring Tactile Data Across Sensors

Tactile perception is essential for human interaction with the environment and is becoming increasingly crucial in robotics. Tactile sensors like the BioTac mimic human fingertips and provide detailed interaction data. Despite its utility in applications like slip detection and object identification, this sensor is now deprecated, making many existing datasets obsolete. This article introduces a novel method for translating data between tactile sensors by exploiting sensor deformation information rather than output signals. We demonstrate the approach by translating BioTac signals into the DIGIT sensor. Our framework consists of three steps: first, converting signal data into corresponding 3D deformation meshes; second, translating these 3D deformation meshes from one sensor to another; and third, generating output images using the converted meshes. Our approach enables the continued use of valuable datasets.