Robots operating in dynamic and unstructured environments must exhibit advanced forms of interaction with objects and humans. “Sense of Touch” in robots can play a fundamental role in enhancing perceptual, cognitive and operative capabilities of robots, specifically when they physically interact with objects and humans in the environment.
Many solutions to design, engineer and manufacture tactile sensors have been presented for both rigid and soft robots, because the availability of appropriate sensing technologies is the first and necessary step, but the effective utilization of “sense of touch” in robots depends also on the understanding of the tactile perception mechanism and in particular how the interaction between the body and the environment filters the tactile information to simplify the following inference process. The seminar will present technological and research challenges for providing robots (rigid and soft) with sense of touch.