Accurate robotic control over interactions with the environment is fundamentally grounded in understanding tactile contacts. In this paper, we introduce MagicTac, a novel high-resolution grid-based tactile sensor. This sensor employs a 3D multi-layer grid-based design, inspired by the Magic Cube structure. This structure can help increase the spatial resolution of MagicTac to perceive external interaction contacts. Moreover, the sensor is produced using the multi-material additive manufacturing technique, which simplifies the manufacturing process while ensuring repeatability of production. Compared to traditional vision-based tactile sensors, it offers the advantages of i) high spatial resolution, ii) significant affordability, and iii) fabrication-friendly construction that requires minimal assembly skills. We evaluated the proposed MagicTac in the tactile reconstruction task using the deformation field and optical flow. Results indicated that MagicTac could capture fine textures and is sensitive to dynamic contact information. Through the grid-based multi-material additive manufacturing technique, the affordability and productivity of MagicTac can be enhanced with a minimum manufacturing cost of 4.76 GBP and a minimum manufacturing time of 24.6 minutes.

翻译：机器人对环境交互的精确控制本质上依赖于对触觉接触的理解。本文提出MagicTac，一种新型高分辨率网格触觉传感器。该传感器采用受魔方结构启发的三维多层网格设计，这种结构有助于提升MagicTac的空间分辨率以感知外部交互接触。此外，传感器采用多材料增材制造技术生产，在保证量产可重复性的同时简化了制造流程。与传统视觉触觉传感器相比，其优势包括：i)高空间分辨率，ii)显著的经济性，iii)组装要求极低的易制造结构。我们利用变形场与光流法在触觉重建任务中评估了所提出的MagicTac。结果表明，MagicTac能捕捉精细纹理，并对动态接触信息敏感。通过基于网格的多材料增材制造技术，MagicTac的经济性与生产效率得到提升，其最低制造成本为4.76英镑，最短制造时间为24.6分钟。