Efficient Force and Stiffness Prediction in Robotic Produce Handling with a Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Fairchild, Preston, Chen, Claudia, Tan, Xiaobo
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Fairchild, Preston
Chen, Claudia
Tan, Xiaobo
author_facet Fairchild, Preston
Chen, Claudia
Tan, Xiaobo
contents Properly handling delicate produce with robotic manipulators is a major part of the future role of automation in agricultural harvesting and processing. Grasping with the correct amount of force is crucial in not only ensuring proper grip on the object, but also to avoid damaging or bruising the product. In this work, a flexible pressure sensor that is both low cost and easy to fabricate is integrated with robotic grippers for working with produce of varying shapes, sizes, and stiffnesses. The sensor is successfully integrated with both a rigid robotic gripper, as well as a pneumatically actuated soft finger. Furthermore, an algorithm is proposed for accelerated estimation of the steady-state value of the sensor output based on the transient response data, to enable real-time applications. The sensor is shown to be effective in incorporating feedback to correctly grasp objects of unknown sizes and stiffnesses. At the same time, the sensor provides estimates for these values which can be utilized for identification of qualities such as ripeness levels and bruising. It is also shown to be able to provide force feedback for objects of variable stiffnesses. This enables future use not only for produce identification, but also for tasks such as quality control and selective distribution based on ripeness levels.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_13616
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Efficient Force and Stiffness Prediction in Robotic Produce Handling with a Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor
Fairchild, Preston
Chen, Claudia
Tan, Xiaobo
Robotics
Systems and Control
Properly handling delicate produce with robotic manipulators is a major part of the future role of automation in agricultural harvesting and processing. Grasping with the correct amount of force is crucial in not only ensuring proper grip on the object, but also to avoid damaging or bruising the product. In this work, a flexible pressure sensor that is both low cost and easy to fabricate is integrated with robotic grippers for working with produce of varying shapes, sizes, and stiffnesses. The sensor is successfully integrated with both a rigid robotic gripper, as well as a pneumatically actuated soft finger. Furthermore, an algorithm is proposed for accelerated estimation of the steady-state value of the sensor output based on the transient response data, to enable real-time applications. The sensor is shown to be effective in incorporating feedback to correctly grasp objects of unknown sizes and stiffnesses. At the same time, the sensor provides estimates for these values which can be utilized for identification of qualities such as ripeness levels and bruising. It is also shown to be able to provide force feedback for objects of variable stiffnesses. This enables future use not only for produce identification, but also for tasks such as quality control and selective distribution based on ripeness levels.
title Efficient Force and Stiffness Prediction in Robotic Produce Handling with a Piezoresistive Pressure Sensor
topic Robotics
Systems and Control
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.13616