SandWorm: Event-based Visuotactile Perception with Active Vibration for Screw-Actuated Robot in Granular Media
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arXiv
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866908776542502912 |
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| author | Li, Shoujie Guo, Changqing Gong, Junhao Liang, Chenxin Ding, Wenhua Ding, Wenbo |
| author_facet | Li, Shoujie Guo, Changqing Gong, Junhao Liang, Chenxin Ding, Wenhua Ding, Wenbo |
| contents | Perception in granular media remains challenging due to unpredictable particle dynamics. To address this challenge, we present SandWorm, a biomimetic screw-actuated robot augmented by peristaltic motion to enhance locomotion, and SWTac, a novel event-based visuotactile sensor with an actively vibrated elastomer. The event camera is mechanically decoupled from vibrations by a spring isolation mechanism, enabling high-quality tactile imaging of both dynamic and stationary objects. For algorithm design, we propose an IMU-guided temporal filter to enhance imaging consistency, improving MSNR by 24%. Moreover, we systematically optimize SWTac with vibration parameters, event camera settings and elastomer properties. Motivated by asymmetric edge features, we also implement contact surface estimation by U-Net. Experimental validation demonstrates SWTac's 0.2 mm texture resolution, 98% stone classification accuracy, and 0.15 N force estimation error, while SandWorm demonstrates versatile locomotion (up to 12.5 mm/s) in challenging terrains, successfully executes pipeline dredging and subsurface exploration in complex granular media (observed 90% success rate). Field experiments further confirm the system's practical performance. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_14128 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | SandWorm: Event-based Visuotactile Perception with Active Vibration for Screw-Actuated Robot in Granular Media Li, Shoujie Guo, Changqing Gong, Junhao Liang, Chenxin Ding, Wenhua Ding, Wenbo Robotics Perception in granular media remains challenging due to unpredictable particle dynamics. To address this challenge, we present SandWorm, a biomimetic screw-actuated robot augmented by peristaltic motion to enhance locomotion, and SWTac, a novel event-based visuotactile sensor with an actively vibrated elastomer. The event camera is mechanically decoupled from vibrations by a spring isolation mechanism, enabling high-quality tactile imaging of both dynamic and stationary objects. For algorithm design, we propose an IMU-guided temporal filter to enhance imaging consistency, improving MSNR by 24%. Moreover, we systematically optimize SWTac with vibration parameters, event camera settings and elastomer properties. Motivated by asymmetric edge features, we also implement contact surface estimation by U-Net. Experimental validation demonstrates SWTac's 0.2 mm texture resolution, 98% stone classification accuracy, and 0.15 N force estimation error, while SandWorm demonstrates versatile locomotion (up to 12.5 mm/s) in challenging terrains, successfully executes pipeline dredging and subsurface exploration in complex granular media (observed 90% success rate). Field experiments further confirm the system's practical performance. |
| title | SandWorm: Event-based Visuotactile Perception with Active Vibration for Screw-Actuated Robot in Granular Media |
| topic | Robotics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.14128 |