Tactile quality control with biomimetic active touch

Research output: Contribution to journalLetter (Academic Journal)peer-review

18 Citations (Scopus)
469 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Fully autonomous factories of the future will need automated quality control processes to monitor products during manufacture. Here we demonstrate that an artificial tactile system offers a solution to autonomous quality inspection, using a biomimetic tactile fingertip mounted as end-effector on an industrial arm. The study considers a task of gap width inspection suitable for judging parts alignment, although the methods apply generally. An active perception method implements optimal decision making while controlling sensor location, which was recently shown to attain superresolved spatial perception. In consequence, gap width is estimated to sub-millimeter accuracy comparable to human discrimination performance and is robust to uncertainty in test object placement.
We conclude that an artificial tactile system of the type here offers an accurate and reliable solution to automated quality control on the production line.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)646-652
Number of pages7
JournalIEEE Robotics and Automation Letters
Volume1
Issue number2
Early online date3 Feb 2016
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jul 2016

Keywords

  • Force and tactile sensing
  • biomimetics

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