Enumeration of Contact Geometries for Kinematic Registration Using Tactile Sensing Fixtures

This paper uses group theory for enumeration of contacts between geometric elements necessary for kinematic registration or part referencing in robotics. The results are applied to type synthesis of tactile sensing mechanical fixtures. Kinematic registration is an important step in robot calibration and in data driven automation. Although the scope of the paper is limited to geometric contacts involving points, lines, planar surfaces, cylindrical surfaces, and spherical surfaces, the techniques developed are general and can be applied to other geometric features and non-tactile sensing elements used in robotic calibration and part referencing.