The sense of touch allows individuals to physically interact with and better perceive their environment. Touch is even more crucial for robots, as robots equipped with thorough tactile sensation can more safely interact with their surroundings, including humans. This article describes a recently developed large-scale tactile sensing system for a robotic link, called TacLINK, which can be assembled to form a whole-body tactile sensing robot arm. The proposed system is an elongated structure comprising a rigid transparent bone covered by continuous artificial soft skin. The soft skin of TacLINK not only provides tactile force feedback but can change its form and stiffness by inflation at low pressure. Upon contact with the surrounding environment, TacLINK perceives tactile information through the three-dimensional (3-D) deformation of its skin, resulting from the tracking of an array of markers on its inner wall by a stereo camera located at both ends of the transparent bone. A finite element model (FEM) was formulated to describe the relationship between applied forces and the displacements of markers, allowing detailed tactile information, including contact geometry and distribution of applied forces, to be derived simultaneously, regardless of the number of contacts. TacLINK is scalable in size, durable in operation, and low in cost, as well as being a high-performance system, that can be widely exploited in the design of robotic arms, prosthetic arms, and humanoid robots, etc. This article presents the design, modeling, calibration, implementation, and evaluation of the system.

中文翻译：

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用于机器人链接的大规模基于视觉的触觉感知：设计、建模和评估

触觉允许个人与环境进行身体互动并更好地感知他们的环境。触摸对机器人来说更为重要，因为配备了完整触觉的机器人可以更安全地与周围环境互动，包括人类。本文介绍了最近开发的一种用于机器人连杆的大型触觉传感系统，称为 TacLINK，它可以组装成一个全身触觉传感机器人手臂。所提出的系统是一个细长的结构，包括由连续的人造软皮肤覆盖的刚性透明骨骼。TacLINK 的软皮不仅提供触觉力反馈，而且可以通过低压充气改变其形状和刚度。与周围环境接触后，TacLINK 通过其皮肤的三维 (3-D) 变形感知触觉信息，通过位于透明骨骼两端的立体相机跟踪其内壁上的一系列标记而产生的结果。制定了一个有限元模型 (FEM) 来描述施加的力与标记位移之间的关系，从而可以同时导出详细的触觉信息，包括接触几何形状和施加力的分布，而不管接触的数量如何。TacLINK 具有体积可扩展、操作耐用、成本低等特点，是一种高性能系统，可广泛应用于机械臂、假肢、仿人机器人等设计。系统的设计、建模、校准、实施和评估。