Spherical GelSight Tactile Sensor

Built a spherical vision-based tactile sensor and its reconstruction pipeline.

Overview

This project at the RoboTouch Lab develops a vision-based tactile sensor for large-area robotic surface scanning. Unlike flat GelSight sensors, the spherical design enables omnidirectional contact sensing.

Hardware Design and Fabrication

Custom PCB and electronics. I built the sensor around an ESP32S3 and a custom PCB with integrated lighting and camera hardware.

Multi-part mold design and silicone casting. I designed multi-part molds for repeatable casting of the spherical elastomer membrane.

Image Processing Pipeline

I built a Python pipeline with OpenCV and photometric stereo to reconstruct surface depth from the captured images.

Fabrication Repeatability

I also documented the fabrication and calibration process so the build is repeatable across prototypes.

Outcomes

  • Conference paper submitted to IROS
  • Established a documented, repeatable fabrication and calibration process

References