Philipp Mittendorfer

Technische Universität München | TUM · Group of Intelligent Autonomous Systems

This article presents a holistic approach to the engineering of an artificial robot skin for robots. An example of a multimodal skin cell is given, one that supports multiple human-like sensing modalities, and support for skin cell network is also provided; this is essential to form large-area skin patches in order to cover the surfaces of robots....

We present a capacitive force sensor based on a polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) film integrated into a printed circuit board (PCB) on a flexible substrate whose layout is defined by inkjet printing. The influence of the dielectric thickness on the sensor behavior is presented. The thinner PDMS film of about 45 μ m shows a sensitivity of up to 3 pF/N b...

In this paper, we present a new approach to automatically acquire the kinematic model of a robot equipped with a multi-modal, modular artificial skin. Here, we make use of the tri-axial accelerometer built into every cell of our artificial skin, along with a set of open loop test motions of the robot. With a circle point analysis we extract the rel...

In this paper, we present a new approach to realize whole-body tactile interactions with a self-organizing, multi-modal artificial skin on a humanoid robot. We, therefore, equipped the whole upper body of the humanoid HRP-2 with various patches of CellulARSkin - a modular artificial skin. In order to automatically handle a potentially high number o...

This paper presents new methods for the recognition and categorization of object properties such as surface texture, weight, and compliance using a multi-modal artificial skin mounted on both arms of a humanoid. In addition, it introduces two novel feature descriptors, which are useful for providing high-level information to learning algorithms. Th...

In a recent survey paper [1], we reviewed the state of tactile sensing with regard to its effective utilization in robotics. Section IV-E of this paper highlights the need for low power consumption by the tactile sensors as one of the requirements for improving effective use of tactile sensing in robotics. In this context, some sensors based on opt...

In this paper, we present a new approach to spatially self-organize a modular artificial skin in 3D space. We were motivated by the demand to efficiently and automatically acquire the position and orientation of a steadily growing number of artificial skin sensor elements. Here, we combine our 3D surface reconstruction algorithm for individual patc...

In this paper, we present a tactile approach to grasp large and unknown objects, which can not be easily manipulated with a single end-effector or two-handed grasps, with the whole upper body of a humanoid robot. Instead of conventional joint level force sensing, we equip the robot with various patches of HEX-o-SKIN - a self-organizing, multi-modal...

A wide variety of tactile (touch) sensors exist today for robotics and related applications. They make use of various transduction methods, smart materials and engineered structures, complex electronics, and sophisticated data processing. While highly useful in themselves, effective utilization of tactile sensors in robotics applications has been s...

In this paper, we present a new version of our multi-modal artificial skin, building from hexagonal shaped, intelligent unit cells. Our focus lies on the design of a discrete normal force sensor cell and its integration next to existing sensors for pre-contact, vibration/motion and temperature. The new force cell is cheap and easy to manufacture, s...

In this paper, we present a new approach to reconstruct the 3D surface of robotic body parts equipped with artificial skins. We do so by fusing static knowledge on the shape, size and tessellation capabilities of the uniform cell our skin consists of, together with dynamic knowledge on its neighbors and measurements from its orientation sensor - a...

In this paper, we present a twofold, open-loop method to explore, model and calibrate articulated robots equipped with artificial skin. We do so, using a 3-axis accelerometer per artificial sensor skin unit (SU) and special excitation pattern on every actuated degree of freedom (DoF) of the robotic joints. The first algorithm extracts the kinematic...

The development of artificial robotic skin is motivated by the necessity to provide robots with a rich and direct feedback of their interaction with themselves and the world. In this paper, we present a technology independent approach to build artificial skin from hexagonal shaped, intelligent unit cells, featuring cell-2-cell communication. The un...

In this paper, we present a new method to automatically transfer touch stimulation into controllable, reflex reactions for articulated robots - such as a humanoid robot. Our work has been motivated by the necessity to automate the reaction setup for an increasing number of our multi-modal artificial sensor skin units (HEX-O-SKIN). Our method theref...

In this paper, we present a new system to automatically estimate the rotational axis (orientation) of robotic joints relative to distributed accelerometers. We designed, implemented, and tested a method for the estimation of joint orientation. The method takes advantage of basic movement patterns of a robotic segment. The method uses considerably l...

In this paper, we present a new generation of active tactile modules (i.e., HEX-O-SKIN), which are developed in order to approach multimodal whole-body-touch sensation for humanoid robots. To better perform like humans, humanoid robots need the variety of different sensory modalities in order to interact with their environment. This calls for certa...