Slip Detection

Determining whether an object held in a hand is starting to slide, so the grip can be adjusted in time.

Slip detection means judging, in real time during grasping and manipulation, whether an object is beginning to slide relative to the fingers — including incipient slip, the very early stage before full slippage. Common signals include a sudden change or vibration in shear (tangential) force on a tactile sensor, changes in the displacement field of surface markers on a vision-based tactile sensor such as GelSight, and the ratio of shear force to normal force on a force sensor approaching the friction coefficient. It addresses the problem that gripping too loosely drops the object while gripping too tightly can crush it: once slip is detected, the controller can increase grip force or adjust its pose. This capability matters for fragile, deformable, or unknown-weight objects, and for in-hand manipulation, and is one of the most direct uses of touch sensing in robotics.

ExampleWatching marker displacement on a GelSight contact surface, the system flags the start of slipping once the markers’ overall displacement becomes uneven, and the gripper immediately increases its force.

Also called

Slippage Detection

Related

Tactile Sensor · Vision-Based Tactile Sensor · Slip · Friction Cone · Marker Tracking (Tactile Markers) · Contact Detection

Sources

Slip Detection with Combined Tactile and Visual Information (arXiv)