Soft-bubble: A highly compliant dense geometry tactile sensor for robot manipulation

Incorporating effective tactile sensing and mechanical compliance is key\ntowards enabling robust and safe operation of robots in unknown, uncertain and\ncluttered environments. Towards realizing this goal, we present a lightweight,\neasy-to-build, highly compliant dense geometry sensor and end effector that\ncomprises an inflated latex membrane with a depth sensor behind it. We present\nthe motivations and the hardware design for this Soft-bubble and demonstrate\nits capabilities through example tasks including tactile-object classification,\npose estimation and tracking, and nonprehensile object manipulation. We also\npresent initial experiments to show the importance of high-resolution geometry\nsensing for tactile tasks and discuss applications in robust manipulation.\n

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