Force and Tactile Sensing for Robots

Dear Colleagues,

The sense of touch is a crucial capability for us to cope with the challenges of everyday life. It enables grasping, manipulation, learning, as well as decision making based on the information we get from the hundreds of mechanoreceptors distributed over our skin. This sense of touch is a capability that robotic systems, prosthetics, and intelligent vehicles of the future need to provide. Firstly, it is necessary to be able to safely collaborate and interact with humans, and secondly, it is essential for them to properly fulfill the tasks they are designed for: overtaking dull tasks in industry, consumer services, and other highly dynamic environments, assistance and care for elderly, housekeeping, etc. For those and many more applications, soft systems are considered the future of robotics. These systems are conformal and compliant and thus provide the necessary prerequisites for ubiquitous robotics, which does not require bothersome and bulky housings any more. Soft robotics is an emerging research field with a variety of novel materials and technologies enabling new designs and strategies, especially with respect to integration. Gripper design, control, and also grasping strategies for soft robotic devices are topics of vivid research. Moreover, it is important to develop sensors and integration strategies for those sensors to enable tactile sensing. We believe that the adoption of such novel materials and technologies is also essential to bring robotics devices closer to ubiquitous usage in everyday life as well as industry. Consequently, this Special Issue gives an opportunity to researchers from robotics as well as from the discipline of material and technology development to get an insight into the excellent work done in the respective fields.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Mohsen Kaboli
Dr. Tapomayukh Bhattacharjee
Guest Editors

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