Abstract

Manipulation tasks often require a high degree of dexterity, typically necessitating grippers with multiple degrees of freedom (DOF). While a robotic hand equipped with multiple fingers can execute precise and intricate manipulation tasks, the inherent redundancy stemming from its high-DOF often adds complexity that may not be required. In this paper, we introduce the design of a tactile sensor-equipped gripper with two fingers and five-DOF. We present a novel design integrating a GelSight tactile sensor, enhancing sensing capabilities and enabling finer control during specific manipulation tasks. To evaluate the gripper's performance, we conduct experiments involving three challenging tasks: 1) retrieving, singularizing, and classification of various objects buried within granular media, 2) executing scooping manipulations of a 3D-printed credit card in confined environments to achieve precise insertion, and 3) sensing entangled cable states with only tactile perception and executing manipulations to achieve two-cable untangling. Our results demonstrate the versatility of the proposed gripper across these tasks, with a high success rate of 84% for singulation task, a 100% success rate for scooping and inserting credit cards, and successful cable untangling. Videos are available at https://yuhochau.github.io/5_dof_gripper/.

Comments

This is the publisher PDF of "In-Hand Singulation, Scooping, and Cable Untangling with a 5-DOF Tactile-Reactive Gripper", Yuhao Zhou, Pokuang Zhou, Shaoxiong Wang, Yu She, Advanced Robotics Research, 2025. Published CC-BY, it is also available at DOI: 10.1002/adrr.202500020.

Keywords

dexterous manipulation, perception for grasping and manipulation, tactile control, visuotactile sensing

Date of this Version

5-12-2025

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