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).

../_images/sd_pst.png

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.

../_images/sd_biotacs.png

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_**