Stable haptic feedback based on a dynamic vision sensor for microrobotics

This work presents a stable vision based haptic feedback for micromanipulation using both an asynchronous Address Event Representation (AER) silicon retina and a conventional frame-based camera. At this scale, most of the grippers used to manipulate objects lack of force sensing. High frequency vision detection thus provides a sound solution to get information about the position of the object and the tool to provide virtual haptic guides. Artificial retinas present high update rates, which enables to address one of the major challenge of haptic feedback teleoperation systems, namely stability. However static objects are not detected. The haptic feedback is thus based on an asynchronous silicon retina to provide a high update rate of moving objects and a frame-based camera to retrieve the position of the target object. This approach is validated by pick-and-place of microspheres (diameter: around 50 micrometers) using a piezoelectric microgripper. The displacement of the tool, as well as the opening and closing of the gripper are controlled by the haptic device. Haptic virtual guides are transmitted to users to assist them in the different steps of the pick-and-place task: a virtual stiffness ensures the correct alignment of the tool with respect to the object, a repulsive haptic force enables users to monitor the gripping step, and operators are assisted while picking and placing the object.