A proxy-tactile reactive control for robots moving in clutter

Robots performing tasks in challenging environments must be supported by control or planning algorithms that exploit sensor feedback to effectively plan the robot’s actions. In this paper, we propose a reactive control law that simultaneously utilizes proximity and tactile feedback to perform a pick-and-place task in an unknown and cluttered environment. Specifically, the presented solution leverages proximity sensing obtained from distributed Time of Flight (ToF) sensors to avoid collision when this does not interfere with the pick-and-place task. Safety is guaranteed by a higher-priority task using tactile feedback that reduces contact forces when a collision occurs. Additionally, we compare the effectiveness of this control scheme with a collision detection and reaction scheme based solely on tactile sensing. Our results demonstrate that the proposed approach reduces the collisions with the environment and the task execution time of the pick-and-place operation.