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Volume 12 Issue 12
Dec.  2025

IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica

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Article Navigation >  IEEE/CAA Journal of Automatica Sinica  > 2025  >  12(12): 2499-2512
J. Ma, M. Tan, Y. Wang, S. Cui, Y. Cao, and S. Wang, “GelUW: A novel underwater vision-based tactile sensor for geometry perception,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2499–2512, Dec. 2025. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125450
Citation: J. Ma, M. Tan, Y. Wang, S. Cui, Y. Cao, and S. Wang, “GelUW: A novel underwater vision-based tactile sensor for geometry perception,” IEEE/CAA J. Autom. Sinica, vol. 12, no. 12, pp. 2499–2512, Dec. 2025. doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125450
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GelUW: A Novel Underwater Vision-Based Tactile Sensor for Geometry Perception

doi: 10.1109/JAS.2025.125450
Funds:  This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023YFB4707000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (U24A20282, U24A20281, U23A20343, U23B2038), and the Youth Innovation Promotion Association CAS (Y2022053)
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    Abstract
  • Underwater tactile sensing technology holds considerable promise in close-range perception for underwater vehicle manipulator systems (UVMSs), providing an alternative when other methods fail. Traditional array-based underwater tactile sensors face challenges in calibration and performance, such as cross-sensitivity to water pressure and low resolution. In this study, a novel gel-based underwater visuotactile sensor, GelUW, is introduced to address these issues. This sensor achieves high three-dimensional spatial resolution (1 mm $ \times $ 1 mm in the plane, 0.7 mm in depth) in shallow water (50 m). Specifically, waterproofing and pressure-balancing mechanisms are designed to handle water pressure, with comparative experiments demonstrating the robustness of the sensor to pressure variations. A multi-color pattern-based 3D geometry perception pipeline (MCP-3D) is proposed for underwater dynamic contact scenarios to tackle marker mismatches caused by impacts, with tapping experiments revealing its self-repair capabilities and 400% improvement in stability. Furthermore, the GelUW is integrated into a UVMS for object surface perception, and pool experiments confirm its high-precision geometry perception capabilities. Finally, the UVMS equipped with GelUW successfully performs crack detection tasks at the Gezhouba Dam in Yichang, China.

     

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