Tactile perception and object grasping of a dexterous hand in a humanoid robot

The sense of human hand touch plays a significant role in object grasping. A human can successfully grasp objects of different weights and shapes by judging the magnitude of the applied force through tactile perception. In this paper, a flexible array of piezoresistive-based tactile sensors for a humanoid robotic dexterous hand is designed to be mounted on the palm and fingers to realize the safe grasping of different objects. The tactile sensor has a 16*16 array for the palm part and a 4*4 array for the four fingers (except the thumb) part. We designed the structure of the tactile sensor, the data acquisition circuit, and the software. In addition, we designed the grasping control system of the dexterous hand based on this tactile sensor. Finally, we fabricated the tactile sensor and dexterous hand prototype and carried out the dexterous hand motion test, tactile sensor test, and object grasping test experiments to verify the effectiveness of the tactile sensor in grasping objects with the dexterous hand.