GelBelt: A Vision-based Tactile Sensor for Continuous Sensing of Large Surfaces

Mohammad Amin Mirzaee1,  Hung-Jui Huang2,  Wenzhen Yuan1

1 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,  2 Carnegie Mellon University

ArXiv  Paper  Video

 Patent pending

Teaser Image

ABSTRACT

Scanning large surfaces is crucial for applications like reconstructing 3D shapes and identifying defects during industrial quality control and maintenance. While traditional vision-based tactile sensors offer high-resolution shape reconstruction, they face challenges such as limited sensing areas and vulnerability to damage when slid across surfaces. These limitations make them impractical for continuous scanning over large surfaces. To overcome these challenges, we present a novel vision-based tactile sensor designed specifically for continuous surface scanning. Our sensor employs an elastomeric belt system supported by two wheels, enabling seamless movement over the target surface.

Automated Scanning

GelBelt can be mounted on a robot arm or coupled with motors to travel on the surface in a continuous motion, capturing high-resolution tactile informaiton. Then, we use Photometric Stereo to estimate the surface normals and resonstruct the surface mesh. We tested the sensor for scanning speeds up to 45 mm/s. GelBelt design has potential to scan the surface at higher speeds by using a faster camera and improved lighting system.

Here you can see the reconstructed mesh of different surfaces in differnt modes. As you can see, even the small traces on a PCB surface is preserved in the final mesh.

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High-resolution Defect Inspection

We compare the scanning accuracy of GelBelt and GelSight Max (GelSight Inc.) for small surface defects on aircraft plates. These plates were sent to us by Boeing for a previous inspection project, having similar defects to ones found during manufactring and maintainance stages.

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Summary Video

You can find more information about GelBelt in the following video, summerizing the key components of the paper. In addition to reconstructing the surface shape and defects, GelBelt has side markers that estimate the surface contact angle and force.

Altogether, GelBelt and future iterations of the sensor have many potential applications in manufacturing, quality control, healthcare, etc., for rapid and continuous high-resolution scanning.

BibTeX

@ARTICLE{mirzaee2025gelbelt,
        author={Mirzaee, Mohammad Amin and Huang, Hung-Jui and Yuan, Wenzhen},
        journal={IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters}, 
        title={GelBelt: A Vision-based Tactile Sensor for Continuous Sensing of Large Surfaces}, 
        year={2025},
        volume={},
        number={},
        pages={1-8},
        doi={10.1109/LRA.2025.3527306}}