Tactile Sensing: New Directions, New Challenges

Over the past three decades, tactile sensing has developed into a sophisticated technology. There has been a longstanding and widely held expectation that tactile sensors would have a major impact on industrial robotics and automation. However, this promise has not been realized, and few, if any, tactile sensors can be found in factory-based applications. Has this technology failed to deliver its expected benefits to robotics applications, or have other factors influenced the development of the field? In this paper, I report on the state of the art and show that tactile sensing has undergone a major change of direction. I revisit the original predictions and expectations, examine the implications of recent reviews, and show how the field has altered course. From current activities and recent trends, I determine the nature of new application areas and pressing developments that hold much promise for the future. There is evidence that tactile sensing will soon play a major role in unstructured environments, particularly in areas such as medicine and surgery, health-care and service robotics, and automated natural product handling.