  We present a novel robot end-effector for gripping and haptic exploration.
Tactile sensing through suction flow monitoring is applied to a new suction cup
design that contains multiple chambers for air flow. Each chamber connects with
its own remote pressure transducer, which enables both absolute and
differential pressure measures between chambers. By changing the overall vacuum
applied to this smart suction cup, it can perform different functions such as
gentle haptic exploration (low pressure) and monitoring breaks in the seal
during strong astrictive gripping (high pressure). Haptic exploration of
surfaces through sliding and palpation can guide the selection of suction grasp
locations and help to identify the local surface geometry. During suction
gripping, this design localizes breaks in the suction seal between four
quadrants with up to 97% accuracy and detects breaks in the suction seal early
enough to avoid total grasp failure.
