{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.01833976833976834, 'fraction_numerical': 0.0009652509652509653, 'mean_word_length': 5.246987951807229, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 0, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 0, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
Exploiting Adaptability in Soft Feet for Sensing Contact Forces

The large majority of legged robots currently employ ball-feet or flat-feet. More recently soft feet have been introduced, to improve walking performance on uneven grounds. Nevertheless, their novel adaptability requires sensor systems beyond traditional Force/Torque sensors to estimate the distribution of forces on the contact surface. This letter shows how a perception layer realized with Inertial Measurement Units allows a soft foot to reconstruct not only the shape of the foot - hinting at the shape of the ground beneath - but also, under precise hypotheses, the contact force distribution. The problem is theoretically formalized and analysed with a quasi-static approach in the Sagittal plane. Then, theoretical results are experimentally validated in a simplified foot-ground interaction scenario. The force reconstruction provided by the proposed method allows to correctly identify the sole contact location arising from obstacles with radius down to 1 cm.