Embodied Tactile Perception of Soft Objects Properties

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Dutta, Anirvan, Devillard, Alexis WM, Zhang, Zhihuan, Cheng, Xiaoxiao, Burdet, Etienne
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Dutta, Anirvan
Devillard, Alexis WM
Zhang, Zhihuan
Cheng, Xiaoxiao
Burdet, Etienne
author_facet Dutta, Anirvan
Devillard, Alexis WM
Zhang, Zhihuan
Cheng, Xiaoxiao
Burdet, Etienne
contents To enable robots to develop human-like fine manipulation, it is essential to understand how mechanical compliance, multi-modal sensing, and purposeful interaction jointly shape tactile perception. In this study, we use a dedicated modular e-Skin with tunable mechanical compliance and multi-modal sensing (normal, shear forces and vibrations) to systematically investigate how sensing embodiment and interaction strategies influence robotic perception of objects. Leveraging a curated set of soft wave objects with controlled viscoelastic and surface properties, we explore a rich set of palpation primitives-pressing, precession, sliding that vary indentation depth, frequency, and directionality. In addition, we propose the latent filter, an unsupervised, action-conditioned deep state-space model of the sophisticated interaction dynamics and infer causal mechanical properties into a structured latent space. This provides generalizable and in-depth interpretable representation of how embodiment and interaction determine and influence perception. Our investigation demonstrates that multi-modal sensing outperforms uni-modal sensing. It highlights a nuanced interaction between the environment and mechanical properties of e-Skin, which should be examined alongside the interaction by incorporating temporal dynamics.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_09836
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Embodied Tactile Perception of Soft Objects Properties
Dutta, Anirvan
Devillard, Alexis WM
Zhang, Zhihuan
Cheng, Xiaoxiao
Burdet, Etienne
Robotics
To enable robots to develop human-like fine manipulation, it is essential to understand how mechanical compliance, multi-modal sensing, and purposeful interaction jointly shape tactile perception. In this study, we use a dedicated modular e-Skin with tunable mechanical compliance and multi-modal sensing (normal, shear forces and vibrations) to systematically investigate how sensing embodiment and interaction strategies influence robotic perception of objects. Leveraging a curated set of soft wave objects with controlled viscoelastic and surface properties, we explore a rich set of palpation primitives-pressing, precession, sliding that vary indentation depth, frequency, and directionality. In addition, we propose the latent filter, an unsupervised, action-conditioned deep state-space model of the sophisticated interaction dynamics and infer causal mechanical properties into a structured latent space. This provides generalizable and in-depth interpretable representation of how embodiment and interaction determine and influence perception. Our investigation demonstrates that multi-modal sensing outperforms uni-modal sensing. It highlights a nuanced interaction between the environment and mechanical properties of e-Skin, which should be examined alongside the interaction by incorporating temporal dynamics.
title Embodied Tactile Perception of Soft Objects Properties
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09836