Robotic Tactile Sensing

Part I Technologies And System.

1 Touch Sensing - Why and Where?1.1 Introduction. 1.2 Touch Sensing - Why? 1.3 Touch Sensing - Where? 1.4 Summary. References.

2 Tactile Sensing: Definitions and Classification. 2.1 Definitions. 2.2 Classification. References.

3 Human Tactile Sensing. 3.1 Introduction. 3.2 Neurophysiology of Human Tactile System. 3.3 Spatio-Temporal properties of Human Tactile Sensing. 3.4 Tactile Information Transfer and Encoding. 3.5 Tactile Sensing and perception. 3.6 Skin Mechanics and Tactile Sensing. 3.7 Design Hints for Robotic Tactile Sensing System. 3.8 Summary. References.

4 System Issues, Requirements and Expectations. 4.1 Introduction. 4.2 Task Related Requirements. 4.3 Hardware Related Requirements. 4.4 Mechanical/Physical Requirements and Expectations. 4.5 Electronics/Electrical Requirements. 4.6 Other Tactile System Requirements. 4.7 Summary. References.

5 Tactile Sensing Technologies. 5.1 Historical Perspective. 5.2 Tactile Sensing Based on Various Transduction Methods. 5.3 Materials for Tactile Sensing. 5.4 Tactile Sensor Structures. 5.5 Summary. References.

Part II Integrated Tactile Sensing.

6 Integrated Tactile Sensing on Silicon. 6.1 Introduction and Historical Perspective. 6.2 Extended Gate Based Tactile Sensing Arrays. 6.3 Experiment Set up. 6.4 Experimental Results. 6.5 Summary. References.

7 POSFET I - The Touch Sensing Device.7.1 The Structure andWorking of POSFETs. 7.2 Choice of Piezoelectric Material. 7.3 POSFETs Versus Extended Gate Approach. 7.4 Design Issues in POSFET Devices. 7.5 Fabrication of POSFETs. 7.6 Modeling and Simulation. 7.7 Experimental Results. 7.8 Summary. References.

8 POSFET II - The Tactile Sensing Chip. 8.1 POSFET Tactile Sensing Chip - Design and Fabrication. 8.2 Experimental Evaluation. 8.3 Future Dimensions. 8.4 Summary. References.

Appendix A Fundamentals of Piezoelectricity. A.1 Introduction and

R. S. Dahiya is a Marie Curie fellow at Fondazione Bruno Kessler, Trento, Italy. He received PhD in humanoid technologies from University of Genoa and Italian Institute of Technology, Italy. He was awarded University Gold Medal and received best paper awards on two occasions in IEEE sponsored national and international conferences. His research interests include electronic skin, tactile sensing, flexible electronics and sensors, and Microsystems.  Dr. Dahiya is the author of more than 60 scientific papers. He has edited two special journal issues on the topics covered in this book. He has worked on many national and European projects. He has also been the leader of individual and multi-partner European Commission funded projects. M. Valle is associate professor in electronics at Faculty of Engineering, University of Genoa. He coordinates the microelectronics lab at DITEN. He has supervised many research projects funded by local, national and European funding bodies. His research interests include embedded electronics, microelectronic systems, wireless sensors networks and tactile sensing systems for robots. Prof. Valle is author of more than 150 scientific papers.

Ravinder S. Dahiya and Maruizio Valle, Springer-Verlag, New York, 2013, 245 Pages. This book focuses on tactile sensing in robotics. Designing a robotic system that can successfully and safely integrate with human-centered society requires careful attention to this topic. To be as capable and aware of our environment as we are, humans use tactile information at many levels. Removing or altering any feature of our tactile system (through injury or disease) tends to reduce our capabilities tremendously, often severely impairing locomotion or manipulation.

For example, there is a case described in this book in which a patient lost most of his sense of touch (all kinesthetic and most cutaneous sensations) due to an unfortunate neural disease, and he collapsed on the floor as a result when attempting to stand, unable to control his joints, often striking himself by  accident. Considering that most robots have little or no sense of touch, and certainly nothing at the level of a human, we begin to analyze why they are so limited in capability (and why they have yet to be successfully integrated into society as service robots).

But how can we measure and process the massively complex and highdimensional tactile information? How can this information be integrated into control algorithms, and why should we as designers even go through the effort? This book offers insightful answers to these and many other related questions. It provides an excellent perspective on this complex topic, bringing together hardware, theory, design, and application seamlessly.

This book is composed of eight chapters and three appendices. In addition, this book is broken into two parts: 1) technologies and systems (Chapters 1-5) and 2) integrated tactile sensing (Chapters 6-8). The authors created a logical flow, beginning with careful motivation in Chapter 1 as to why the sense of touch is important, as well as carefully defining touch and tactile sensing in Chapter 2.