I have found many papers on using a sensor skin (large numbers of IR sensors) on a robot arm to detect an obstacle to avoid any collision. I was wondering whether it is possible to use minimal numbers of sensors to do the same purpose, i.e, measure the distance from the robot arm to the obstacle which ultimately using the developed software to compare it to a threshold value? If the measured distance is less than the threshold, then collision is detected and the robot would be ordered to stop operation or change path.
Thanks