The performance of a deformable-membrane tactile sensor: basic results on geometrically-defined tasks

The limitations of rigid fingertips in the precise and algorithmic study of manipulation have been discussed in many works, some dating back more than a decade. Despite that fact, much of the work in dexterous manipulation has continued to use the "point-contact" model for finger-object interactions. In fact, most of the existing tactile sensing technologies are not adaptable to deformable fingertips. We report on experimental results obtained with a deformable tactile sensor whose properties are well-suited to manipulation. The results presented here show that the sensor described provides a rich set of tactile data.