TacFinRay: Soft Tactile Fin-Ray Finger with Indirect Tactile Sensing for Robust Grasping

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Nam, Saekwang, Deng, Bowen, Lee, Loong Yi, Rossiter, Jonathan M., Lepora, Nathan F.
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Nam, Saekwang
Deng, Bowen
Lee, Loong Yi
Rossiter, Jonathan M.
Lepora, Nathan F.
author_facet Nam, Saekwang
Deng, Bowen
Lee, Loong Yi
Rossiter, Jonathan M.
Lepora, Nathan F.
contents We present a tactile-sensorized Fin-Ray finger that enables simultaneous detection of contact location and indentation depth through an indirect sensing approach. A hinge mechanism is integrated between the soft Fin-Ray structure and a rigid sensing module, allowing deformation and translation information to be transferred to a bottom crossbeam upon which are an array of marker-tipped pins based on the biomimetic structure of the TacTip vision-based tactile sensor. Deformation patterns captured by an internal camera are processed using a convolutional neural network to infer contact conditions without directly sensing the finger surface. The finger design was optimized by varying pin configurations and hinge orientations, achieving 0.1\,mm depth and 2mm location-sensing accuracies. The perception demonstrated robust generalization to various indenter shapes and sizes, which was applied to a pick-and-place task under uncertain picking positions, where the tactile feedback significantly improved placement accuracy. Overall, this work provides a lightweight, flexible, and scalable tactile sensing solution suitable for soft robotic structures where the sensing needs situating away from the contact interface.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2512_06524
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle TacFinRay: Soft Tactile Fin-Ray Finger with Indirect Tactile Sensing for Robust Grasping
Nam, Saekwang
Deng, Bowen
Lee, Loong Yi
Rossiter, Jonathan M.
Lepora, Nathan F.
Robotics
We present a tactile-sensorized Fin-Ray finger that enables simultaneous detection of contact location and indentation depth through an indirect sensing approach. A hinge mechanism is integrated between the soft Fin-Ray structure and a rigid sensing module, allowing deformation and translation information to be transferred to a bottom crossbeam upon which are an array of marker-tipped pins based on the biomimetic structure of the TacTip vision-based tactile sensor. Deformation patterns captured by an internal camera are processed using a convolutional neural network to infer contact conditions without directly sensing the finger surface. The finger design was optimized by varying pin configurations and hinge orientations, achieving 0.1\,mm depth and 2mm location-sensing accuracies. The perception demonstrated robust generalization to various indenter shapes and sizes, which was applied to a pick-and-place task under uncertain picking positions, where the tactile feedback significantly improved placement accuracy. Overall, this work provides a lightweight, flexible, and scalable tactile sensing solution suitable for soft robotic structures where the sensing needs situating away from the contact interface.
title TacFinRay: Soft Tactile Fin-Ray Finger with Indirect Tactile Sensing for Robust Grasping
topic Robotics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.06524