Early slip detection with a tactile sensor based on retina

The interest in tactile sensors is increasing as their use in complex unstructured environments is demanded, like in telepresence, minimal invasive surgery, robotics etc. The array of pressure data provided by these devices can be treated with different image processing algorithms to extract miscellaneous information. However, as in the case of vision chips or artificial retinas, problems arise when the size of the array and the computational complexity increase. Having a look at the skin, the information collected by every mechanoreceptor is not sent to the brain for its processing, but some complex pre-processing is performed to fit the limited throughput of the nervous system. This is specially important for high bandwidth demanding tasks, as the case of slip detection with tactile sensors, which is demanding in computing requirements. Here we show some results from a tactile processor based on circuitry proposed for an artificial retina that has been modified to mimic the way the biological skin works.