Special Topics: Tactile Sensing and Haptics

Catalog description

Touch is an important perception modality for both humans and robots. This course aims at providing an overview of the touch perception system for both robots and humans, and provide students with some hands-on experience with the popular touch sensors and devices. On the side of robot sensing, the course will cover the topics on the working principles and designs of robot touch sensors, signal processing algorithms for tactile sensing, and the application of tactile sensing in different robotic tasks; on the side of haptics, the course will introduce the neurological and cognitive study in human haptic system, and the designs and applications of haptic devices that provide a human-machine interface. The human-machine interface is a core part of Virtual Reality (VR) and teleoperation of robots when touch is involved. The course includes lectures, research paper presentation and discussion, and course projects with tactile sensors or haptic devices.