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中至关重要的传感模式，尤其适用于需要精确操作和安全交互的场景。以往研究主要集中于接触姿态的触觉感知，因为这是遍历物体表面或边缘、操控物体以及沿预定路径推动物体等任务所需的核心能力。然而，对于目标追踪与操控等任务所需的接触后切向力估计能力，相关研究却相对匮乏。实际上，接触后切向力常被视为"干扰变量"并尽可能被消除，因其可能对接触姿态估计等其他触觉感知任务产生不利影响。本文提出一种能同步估计接触姿态与接触后切向力的触觉机器人系统，并利用这些信息控制其与物体的交互。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，我们系统性地验证了新系统在目标追踪、表面跟随、单臂物体推动及双臂物体推动等任务中的性能表现。