We present GelSphere, a spherical vision-based tactile sensor designed for real-time continuous surface scanning. Unlike traditional vision-based tactile sensors that can only sense locally and are damaged when slid across surfaces, and cylindrical tactile sensors that can only roll along a fixed direction, our design enables omnidirectional rolling on surfaces. We accomplish this through our novel sensing system design, which has steel balls inside the sensor, forming a bearing layer between the gel and the rigid housing that allows rolling motion in all axes. The sensor streams tactile images through Wi-Fi, with online large-surface reconstruction capabilities. We present quantitative results for both reconstruction accuracy and image fusion performance. The results show that our sensor maintains geometric fidelity and high reconstruction accuracy even under multi-directional rolling, enabling uninterrupted surface scanning.

翻译：本文提出GelSphere，一种基于视觉的球形触觉传感器，专为实时连续表面扫描而设计。与传统仅能局部感知且在表面滑动时易受损的视觉触觉传感器，以及仅能沿固定方向滚动的圆柱形触觉传感器不同，我们的设计实现了在表面上的全向滚动。这一功能通过我们新颖的传感系统设计实现：传感器内部设有钢球，在凝胶与刚性外壳之间形成轴承层，从而实现多轴滚动运动。该传感器通过Wi-Fi传输触觉图像，并具备在线大表面重建能力。我们提供了重建精度与图像融合性能的定量评估结果。结果表明，即使在多向滚动条件下，我们的传感器仍能保持几何保真度与高重建精度，从而实现不间断的表面扫描。