Tactile perception is a crucial sensing modality in robotics, particularly in scenarios that require precise manipulation and safe interaction with other objects. Previous research in this area has focused extensively on tactile perception of contact poses as this is an important capability needed for tasks such as traversing an object's surface or edge, manipulating an object, or pushing an object along a predetermined path. Another important capability needed for tasks such as object tracking and manipulation is estimation of post-contact shear but this has received much less attention. Indeed, post-contact shear has often been considered a "nuisance variable" and is removed if possible because it can have an adverse effect on other types of tactile perception such as contact pose estimation. This paper proposes a tactile robotic system that can simultaneously estimate both the contact pose and post-contact shear, and use this information to control its interaction with other objects. Moreover, our new system is capable of interacting with other objects in a smooth and continuous manner, unlike the stepwise, position-controlled systems we have used in the past. We demonstrate the capabilities of our new system using several different controller configurations, on tasks including object tracking, surface following, single-arm object pushing, and dual-arm object pushing.

翻译：触觉感知是机器人领域的关键感知模态，尤其适用于需要精确操控并确保与其他物体安全交互的场景。现有研究广泛聚焦于接触位姿的触觉感知，因为这是实现物体表面/边缘遍历、物体操控、沿预定路径推动物体等任务所需的核心能力。然而，对于目标跟踪与操控等任务同样重要的接触后剪切力估计能力却鲜受关注。事实上，接触后剪切力常被视为"干扰变量"，若条件允许往往被剔除，因其可能对接触位姿估计等其他触觉感知模式产生负面影响。本文提出一种可同步估计接触位姿与接触后剪切力的触觉机器人系统，并利用该信息控制其与外部物体的交互。与以往采用的步进式位置控制系统不同，本系统能以平滑连续的方式与物体交互。通过多种控制器配置，我们验证了新系统在目标跟踪、表面跟随、单臂推物及双臂推物等任务中的性能表现。