Skip to main content
Log in

Deep-learning-based object classification of tactile robot hand for smart factory

  • Published:
Applied Intelligence Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Object classification based on tactile perception plays an essential role in robot manipulation process, as it serves for decision-making for the the downstream manipulation tasks. The demand for precise execution by industrial robots in smart factories has increased, and like humans, robots can infer tactile properties and identify object categories through brief motions. However, traditional practices only consider grasping as an instant state, resulting in the absence of time-series information. To address this issue, we propose a spatio-temporal attention-based Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network to solve the time-series problem for object classification. The proposed model utilizes a temporal attention mechanism that can dynamically trace the time-related features of the tactile data. Moreover, a spatial attention mechanism coordinates the integration of tactile information from various input features. The model classifies objects based on the entire temporal process of robot-object contact rather than data from a particular moment. To further enhance the model’s performance, we also incorporate PCA and Kalman filter. Our extensive experiments demonstrate the proposed model’s accuracy and efficiency, validating its ability to perform object classification based on tactile perception.

Graphical abstract

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8
Fig. 9
Fig. 10
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
Fig. 13
Fig. 14
Fig. 15

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. http://wiki.ros.org/rviz

Abbreviations

IMU:

Inertial Measurement Unit

RNN:

Recurrent Neural Network

LSTM:

Long Short-Term Memory

MAE:

Mean Absolute Error

RMSE:

Root Mean Square Error

SVM:

Support Vector Machine

EP:

Exploratory Procedures

NN:

Neural Network

GPU:

Graphics Processing Unit

PCA:

Principal Component Analysis

MAPE:

Mean Absolute Percentage Error

KNN:

K-nearest Neighbors

LR:

Logistic Regression

References

  1. Joolee JB, Uddin MA, Jeon S (2022) Deep multi-model fusion network based real object tactile understanding from haptic data. Appl Intell 1–16

  2. Zhao D, Sun F, Wang Z, Zhou Q (2021) A novel accurate positioning method for object pose estimation in robotic manipulation based on vision and tactile sensors. Int J Adv Manuf Technol 116:2999–3010

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Nottensteiner K, Sachtler A, Albu-Schäffer A (2021) Towards autonomous robotic assembly: using combined visual and tactile sensing for adaptive task execution. J Intell Robot Syst 101(3):49

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Verleysen A, Biondina M, Wyffels F (2022) Learning self-supervised task progression metrics: a case of cloth folding. Appl Intell 1–19

  5. Yang S, Tan J, Chen B (2022a) Robust spike-based continual meta-learning improved by restricted minimum error entropy criterion. Entropy 24(4):455

  6. Yang S, Linares-Barranco B, Chen B (2022b) Heterogeneous ensemble-based spike-driven few-shot online learning. Front Neurosci 16

  7. Spiers AJ, Liarokapis MV, Calli B, Dollar AM (2016) Single-grasp object classification and feature extraction with simple robot hands and tactile sensors. IEEE Trans Haptics 9(2):207–220

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. da Fonseca VP, Jiang X, Petriu EM, de Oliveira TEA (2022) Tactile object recognition in early phases of grasping using underactuated robotic hands. Intel Serv Robot 15(4):513–525

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Huang X, Halwani M, Muthusamy R, Ayyad A, Swart D, Seneviratne L, Gan D, Zweiri Y (2022) Real-time grasping strategies using event camera. J Intell Manuf 1–23

  10. Congcong M, Wang Y, Mei D, Wang S (2022) Development of robotic hand tactile sensing system for distributed contact force sensing in robotic dexterous multimodal grasping. Int J Intell Robot Appl 6(4):760–772

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Cui Y, Ooga J, Ogawa A, Matsubara T (2020) Probabilistic active filtering with Gaussian processes for occluded object search in clutter. Appl Intell 50:4310–4324

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. James JW, Church A, Cramphorn L, Lepora NF (2021) Tactile Model O: fabrication and testing of a 3D-printed, three-fingered tactile robot hand. Soft Rob 8(5):594–610

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. Yang J, Kim M, Kim D, Yun D (2021) Protrusion type slip detection soft sensor and application to anthropomorphic robot hand. In: 2021 24th International Conference on Mechatronics Technology (ICMT). IEEE, pp 1–5

  14. Thuruthel TG, Shih B, Laschi C, Tolley MT (2019) Soft robot perception using embedded soft sensors and recurrent neural networks. Sci Robot 4(26):1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Kim S-H, Sunjong O, Kim KB, Jung Y, Lim H, Cho K-J (2018a) Design of a bioinspired robotic hand: magnetic synapse sensor integration for a robust remote tactile sensing. IEEE Robot Autom Lett 3(4):3545–3552

  16. He L, Qiujie L, Abad S-A, Rojas N, Nanayakkara T (2020) Soft fingertips with tactile sensing and active deformation for robust grasping of delicate objects. IEEE Robot Autom Lett 5(2):2714–2721

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Belzile B, Birglen L (2014) A compliant self-adaptive gripper with proprioceptive haptic feedback. Auton Robot 36(1):79–91

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Dollar AM, Jentoft LP, Gao JH, Howe RD (2010) Contact sensing and grasping performance of compliant hands. Auton Robot 28(1):65–75

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Jentoft LP, Howe RD (2011) Determining object geometry with compliance and simple sensors. In: 2011 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems. IEEE

  20. Vargas L, Huang H, Zhu Y, Xiaogang H (2021) Object recognition via evoked sensory feedback during control of a prosthetic hand. IEEE Robot Autom Lett 7(1):207–214

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Ning F, Shi Y, Cai M, Weiqing X (2020) Various realization methods of machine-part classification based on deep learning. J Intell Manuf 31(8):2019–2032

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Yang S, Gao T, Wang J, Deng B, Azghadi MR, Lei T, Linares-Barranco B (2022c) SAM: a unified self-adaptive multicompartmental spiking neuron model for learning with working memory. Front Neurosci 16

  23. Li G, Liu S, Wang L, Zhu R (2020) Skin-inspired quadruple tactile sensors integrated on a robot hand enable object recognition. Sci Robot 5(49):eabc8134

  24. Kim D-E, Kim K-S, Park J-H, Ailing L, Lee J-M (2018b) Stable grasping of objects using air pressure sensors on a robot hand. In: 2018 18th International Conference on Control, Automation and Systems (ICCAS). IEEE, pp 500–502

  25. Spiers AJ, Morgan AS, Srinivasan K, Calli B, Dollar AM (2019) Using a variable-friction robot hand to determine proprioceptive features for object classification during within-hand-manipulation. IEEE Trans Haptics 13(3):600–610

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Liarokapis MV, Calli B, Spiers AJ, Dollar AM (2015) Unplanned, model-free, single grasp object classification with underactuated hands and force sensors. In: 2015 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE, pp 5073–5080

  27. Gorges N, Navarro SE, Göger D, Wörn H (2010) Haptic object recognition using passive joints and haptic key features. In: 2010 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. IEEE, pp 2349–2355

  28. Pastor F, García-González J, Gandarias JM, Medina D, Closas P, García-Cerezo AJ, Gómez-de Gabriel JM (2020) Bayesian and neural inference on LSTM-based object recognition from tactile and kinesthetic information. IEEE Robot Autom Lett 6(1):231–238

  29. Millar C, Siddique N, Kerr E (2021) LSTM classification of functional grasps using SEMG data from low-cost wearable sensor. In: 2021 7th International Conference on Control, Automation and Robotics (ICCAR). IEEE, pp 213–222

  30. Funabashi S, Morikuni S, Geier A, Schmitz A, Ogasa S, Torno TP, Somlor S, Sugano S (2018) Object recognition through active sensing using a multi-fingered robot hand with 3D tactile sensors. In: 2018 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). IEEE, pp 2589–2595

  31. LeCun Y, Bengio Y, Hinton G (2015) Deep learning. Nature 521(7553):436–444

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Wang K-J, Rizqi DA, Nguyen H-P (2021) Skill transfer support model based on deep learning. J Intell Manuf 32(4):1129–1146

    Article  Google Scholar 

  33. Srivastava N, Hinton G, Krizhevsky A, Sutskever I, Salakhutdinov R (2014) Dropout: a simple way to prevent neural networks from overfitting. J Mach Learn Res 15(56):1929–1958. http://jmlr.org/papers/v15/srivastava14a.html

  34. Hochreiter S, Schmidhuber J (1997) Long short-term memory. Neural Comput 9(8):1735–1780

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Rumelhart DE, Hinton GE, Williams RJ (1986) Learning representations by back-propagating errors. Nature 323(6088):533–536

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Dongkun Wang.

Ethics declarations

Ethical approval

Hereby, I Dongkun Wang consciously assure that for the manuscript Object classification for tactile robot hand utilizing deep learning model facing the demand of smart factory the following is fulfilled:

1. This material is the authors’ own original work, which has not been previously published elsewhere.

2. The paper is not currently being considered for publication elsewhere.

3. The paper reflects the authors’ own research and analysis in a truthful and complete manner.

4. The paper properly credits the meaningful contributions of co-authors and co-researchers.

5. The results are appropriately placed in the context of prior and existing research.

6. All sources used are properly disclosed (correct citation). Literally copying of text must be indicated as such by using quotation marks and giving proper reference.

7. All authors have been personally and actively involved in substantial work leading to the paper, and will take public responsibility for its content.

The violation of the Ethical Statement rules may result in severe consequences.

I agree with the above statements and declare that this submission follows the policies of Solid State Ionics as outlined in the Guide for Authors and in the Ethical Statement.

Additional information

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Wang, D., Teng, Y., Peng, J. et al. Deep-learning-based object classification of tactile robot hand for smart factory. Appl Intell 53, 22374–22390 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-023-04683-5

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10489-023-04683-5

Keywords

Navigation