A potential field approach to dexterous tactile exploration of unknown objects

Haptic exploration of unknown objects is of great importance for acquiring multi-modal object representations, which enable a humanoid robot to autonomously execute grasping and manipulation tasks. In this paper we present a tactile exploration strategy to guide an anthropomorphic five-finger hand along the surface of previously unknown objects and build a 3D object representation based on acquired tactile point clouds. The proposed strategy makes use of the dynamic potential field approach suggested in the context of mobile robot navigation. To demonstrate the capabilities of this strategy, we conduct experiments in a detailed physics simulation using a model of the five-finger hand. Exploration results of several test objects are given.