Fingertips

PST Sensor

These are simple sensors, fitted as standard, which measure the air pressure within a bubble at the finger tip. When the finger tip presses on an object, the pressure in the bubble increases. The sensor incorporates an automatic drift and temperature compensation algorithm (essentially a high pass filter with an extremely low cut off frequency).

Topics

PST sensor data will be published on the following topics:

/rh/tactile

Example topic message when using PST sensors:

header:
-
seq: 6306
stamp: .
secs: 1660831064
nsecs: 585176249
frame_id: "rh_distal"
pressure: [ 22560, 256, 22560, 22560, 22560 ]
temperature: [ 32635, 637, 32635, 32635, 32635 ]
-

BioTacs

The BioTacSP® is a biologically inspired tactile sensor from SynTouch LLC. It consists of a rigid core surrounded by an elastic skin filled with a fluid to give a compliance similar to the human fingertip. The BioTac is capable of detecting the full range of sensory information that human fingers can detect: forces, microvibrations, and thermal gradients. The skin is an easily replaced, low-cost, moulded elastomeric sleeve.

Sensor	Update rate
Pressure AC signal	2000Hz
Pressure DC signal	90Hz
Temperature AC & DC	90Hz
19 Normal force sensors	90Hz each

Topics

• This topic is published by the driver at 100 Hz with data from tactile sensors:

  /rh/tactile
  

  Example topic message when using BioTac fingertip sensors:

  tactiles:
  -
  pac0: 2048
  pac1: 2054
  pdc: 2533
  tac: 2029
  tdc: 2556
  electrodes: [2622, 3155, 2525, 3062, 2992, 2511, 3083, 137, 2623, 2552, 2928, 3249, 2705, 3037, 3020, 2405, 3049, 948, 2458, 2592, 3276, 3237, 3244, 3119]
  -
  pac0: 0
  pac1: 0
  pdc: -9784
  tac: 32518
  tdc: 0
  electrodes: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  -
  pac0: 0
  pac1: 0
  pdc: -9784
  tac: 32518
  tdc: 0
  electrodes: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  -
  pac0: 0
  pac1: 0
  pdc: -9784
  tac: 32518
  tdc: 0
  electrodes: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  -
  pac0: 0
  pac1: 0
  pdc: -9784
  tac: 32518
  tdc: 0
  electrodes: [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
  

• The following topics are specific for each sensor and update at 100 Hz with data from the biotac sensors, which comprises their pressure, temperature and electrode resistance. This topic is published from the /biotac_republisher node which receives this data from the driver via the /rh/tactile topic.

  /rh/biotac_
  

  Example /rh/biotac_** topic message:

  pac0: 2056
  pac1: 2043
  pdc: 2543
  tac: 2020
  tdc: 2454
  electrodes: [2512, 3062, 2404, 2960, 2902, 2382, 2984, 138, 2532, 2422, 2809, 3167, 2579, 2950, 2928, 2269, 2966, 981, 2374, 2532, 3199, 3152, 3155, 3033]
  

Optoforce

If the hand has optoforce sensors installed, it is recommended to use the one liner to install the docker container using the “-o true” option. Doing this, everything will be set up automatically.

For more information on setup and getting started with the optoforce sensors, look here.

Topics

Optoforce sensor data will be published on the following topics:

/rh/optoforce_**