VBT-MPC: Vision-Based Tactile MPC for Contour Following

This article has been accepted for publication in the journal IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters (RAL)

Edison Velasco-Sánchez1 , Luis F. Recalde2 , Guanrui Li2, Pablo Gil1
1 Group of Automation, Robotics and Computer Vision (AUROVA), University of Alicante
2 Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Robotics Engineering
Diagram VBT-MPC: Vision-Based Tactile MPC for Contour Following

Pipeline of the Proposed VBT-MPC for contour following by touch.

VBT-MPC experiments

Abstract

Tactile sensing plays a key role in robotic manipulation, particularly in tasks like surface inspection. Successful execution requires maintaining contact while accurately tracking object contours. In this work, we propose a Vision-Based Tactile Model Predictive Control (VBT-MPC) framework for robotic contour following using a Vision-Based Tactile Sensor (VBTS) mounted in an eye-in-hand configuration. The proposed controller operates directly in contour features space, thereby avoiding the need for separate pose-estimation modules or complex force-control architectures. We further compare our VBT-MPC with visual-servoing strategies adapted to tactile features, and evaluate contour tracking on objects with diverse geometries and materials in both simulation and real-world experiments.

BibTeX


        @ARTICLE{velasco2026vbtmpc,
          author={Velasco-Sanchez, Edison and Recalde, Luis F. and Li, Guanrui and Gil, Pablo},
          journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, 
          title={VBT-MPC: Vision-Based Tactile MPC for Contour Following}, 
          year={2026},
          volume={11},
          number={7},
          pages={8504-8511},
          keywords={Contacts;Modeling;Silicon;Image sensors;End effectors;Robots;Tactile sensors;Timing;Visual systems;Surfaces;Visual servoing;force and tactile sensing;sensor-based control},
          doi={10.1109/LRA.2026.3698362}
        }
    

Research work was funded by:

    This work was supported by the Interreg-VI Sudoe and European Regional Development Funds through the REMAIN Project under Grant S1/1.1/E0111.