Existence of system-level fiber-optic integration for vision-based tactile sensors

Determine whether any prior published works extend fiber-optic imaging and illumination design details to full system-level integration in vision-based tactile sensors, specifically addressing the arrangement of optical fiber bundles and lighting for a hemispherical elastomer dome and the design of a miniature distal lens enabling close-range imaging with high field of view.

Background

The paper revisits fiber-based imaging through the lens of endoscopic design principles to achieve high spatial resolution with small sensor size. While fiber bundles have long been used in endoscopy for illumination and imaging, the authors note a gap between optical techniques and complete system designs tailored for high-resolution visuotactile sensing.

Specifically, the authors highlight missing system-level details necessary for integrating fiber-based conduits into vision-based tactile sensors, including how to arrange fibers and illumination around a hemispherical elastomer dome and how to design a miniature distal lens for wide field-of-view close-range imaging. This motivates their proposed DIGIT Pinki architecture, which addresses these aspects, but they explicitly state uncertainty about prior work having done so.