Handbook of Robotics Chapter 19 : Force and Tactile Sensors

This chapter provides an overview of force and tac-tile sensing, with the primary emphasis placed on tactile sensing. We begin by presenting some basic considerations in choosing a tactile sensor and then review of a wide variety of sensor types, including proximity, kine-matic, force, dynamic, contact, skin deflection, thermal and pressure sensors. We also review various transduc-tion methods, appropriate for each general sensor type. We consider the information that these various types of sensors provide in terms of whether they are most useful for manipulation, surface exploration or being responsive to contacts from external agents. Concerning the interpretation of tactile information, we describe the general problems and present two short illustrative examples. The first involves intrinsic tac-tile sensing, i.e., estimating contact locations and forces from force sensors. The second involves contact pressure sensing, i.e., estimating surface normal and shear stress