Active Cross-Modal Visuo-Tactile Perception of Deformable Linear Objects

Abstract: This paper presents a novel cross-modal visuo-tactile perception framework for the 3D shape reconstruction of deformable linear objects (DLOs), with a specific focus on cables subject to severe visual occlusions. Unlike existing methods relying predominantly on vision, whose performance degrades under varying illumination, background clutter, or partial visibility, the proposed approach integrates foundation-model-based visual perception with adaptive tactile exploration. The visual pipeline exploits SAM for instance segmentation and Florence for semantic refinement, followed by skeletonization, endpoint detection, and point-cloud extraction. Occluded cable segments are autonomously identified and explored with a tactile sensor, which provides local point clouds that are merged with the visual data through Euclidean clustering and topology-preserving fusion. A B-spline interpolation driven by endpoint-guided point sorting yields a smooth and complete reconstruction of the cable shape. Experimental validation using a robotic manipulator equipped with an RGB-D camera and a tactile pad demonstrates that the proposed framework accurately reconstructs both simple and highly curved single or multiple cable configurations, even when large portions are occluded. These results highlight the potential of foundation-model-enhanced cross-modal perception for advancing robotic manipulation of deformable objects.