TouchDrive: Electronics-Free Tactile Sensing Interface for Assistive Grasping

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.06432v1
• Date: Thu, 07 May 2026 15:35:22 GMT
• Title: TouchDrive: Electronics-Free Tactile Sensing Interface for Assistive Grasping
• Abstract summary: We present TouchDrive, a cost-effective, electronics-free tactile sensing interface for assistive grasping.<n>TouchDrive directly converts contact forces into pneumatic feedback through valve-mediated switching.<n>System can be employed using a pneumatic normally closed valve, a compressed air tank, sensing element, and haptic feedback actuator without electronics.
• Score: 4.2506456084160265
• License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
• Abstract: Assistive robotic grasping plays an important role in enabling safe and adaptive manipulation of diverse objects. However, existing systems often rely on electronic sensing and multi-stage processing pipelines, increasing system complexity and reducing accessibility. To address these limitations, we present TouchDrive, a cost-effective, electronics-free tactile sensing interface for assistive grasping. TouchDrive directly converts contact forces into pneumatic feedback through valve-mediated switching, integrating sensing, signal generation, and feedback within a single passive mechanical loop. The system can be employed using a pneumatic normally closed valve, a compressed air tank, sensing element, and haptic feedback actuator without electronics. By delivering tactile cues, TouchDrive empowers users to modulate grasp forces, enabling precise and robust delicate manipulation of compliant and fragile objects. The interface has been validated across diverse robotic platforms, consistently demonstrating reliable performance and practical applicability in assistive grasping tasks, such as handling fruits and everyday items (up to 20 objects).

Related papers

• A Wearable Pneumatic Device for Continuous, Closed-Loop, Bidirectional Tactile Interaction [3.610437630887063]
  We present a system of two wearable pneumatic haptic devices that supports continuous, closed-loop, bidirectional tactile interaction.<n>A single device can contain up to twelve pressure sensing channels connected to textile-based pneumatic pouches.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-09-01T02:57:46Z)
• AdaDexGrasp: Adaptive Dexterous Grasping via 3D Visuo-Tactile Representation Fusion [60.79507611737292]
  Humans achieve stable and adaptive grasps by seamlessly integrating visual perception and tactile feedback.<n>Existing robotic grasping approaches rely on visual inputs and lack mechanisms for tactile-guided adaptation after contact.<n>We propose a unified visuo-tactile-fusion grasping framework that integrates grasp generation, feasibility prediction, and adaptive refinement.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-08-06T16:29:11Z)
• AetheRock: An Arm-Worn Robot Teaching System for Force-Guided Vision-Tactile Learning [56.20593626288444]
  AetheRock is an arm-worn device featuring a modular and easily manufactured visuo-tactile sensor, GelSlim-MiniFab, at the fingertip.<n>We propose ForceVT, a representation learning framework that uses force and vision to guide fidelity-agnostic tactile learning.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-06-08T17:38:57Z)
• A soft and lightweight fabric-based pneumatic interface for multimodal fingertip tactile feedback [3.5609228677180567]
  We show that fabric-based pneumatic actuation can achieve adequate tactile output, low mass, simple fabrication, and untethered portability.<n>A psychophysical study with 15 participants demonstrates classification accuracy exceeding 90% across three distinct tactile modes.<n>These findings establish fabric-based pneumatic actuation as a viable technology route for lightweight, low-cost, and multimodal fingertip haptic interfaces.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-04-01T20:49:00Z)
• Feel Robot Feels: Tactile Feedback Array Glove for Dexterous Manipulation [29.061513339025026]
  We present TAG, a low-cost glove system that integrates precise hand motion capture with high-resolution tactile feedback.<n>For motion capture, TAG employs a non-contact magnetic sensing design that provides drift-free, electromagnetically robust 21-DoF joint tracking.<n>We show that TAG enables reliable real-time perception of contact geometry and dynamic force, improves success rates in contact-rich teleoperation tasks, and increases the reliability of demonstration data collection for learning-based manipulation.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-03-30T15:04:13Z)
• UniForce: A Unified Latent Force Model for Robot Manipulation with Diverse Tactile Sensors [51.88112610411651]
  We propose a novel unified tactile representation learning framework that learns a shared latent force space across diverse tactile sensors.<n>UniForce reduces cross-sensor domain shift by jointly modeling inverse dynamics (image-to-force) and forward dynamics (force-to-image)<n>To avoid reliance on expensive external force/torque (F/T) sensors, we exploit static equilibrium and collect force-paired data via direct sensor--object--sensor interactions.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-02-01T11:03:01Z)
• TouchGuide: Inference-Time Steering of Visuomotor Policies via Touch Guidance [53.35296919674763]
  TouchGuide is a novel cross-policy visuo-tactile fusion paradigm that fuses modalities within a low-dimensional action space.<n>touchGuide operates in two stages to guide a pre-trained diffusion or flow-matching visuomotor policy.<n>To facilitate TouchGuide training with high-quality and cost-effective data, we introduce TacUMI, a data collection system.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2026-01-28T04:22:47Z)
• Fluidically Innervated Lattices Make Versatile and Durable Tactile Sensors [43.33741954317892]
  We introduce a passive soft robotic fingertip with integrated tactile sensing, fabricated using a 3D-printed elastomer lattice with embedded air channels.<n>This sensorization approach, termed fluidic innervation, transforms the lattice into a tactile sensor by detecting pressure changes within sealed air channels.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-07-28T18:00:04Z)
• Touch in the Wild: Learning Fine-Grained Manipulation with a Portable Visuo-Tactile Gripper [7.618517580705364]
  We present a portable, lightweight gripper with integrated tactile sensors.<n>We propose a cross-modal representation learning framework that integrates visual and tactile signals.<n>We validate our approach on fine-grained tasks such as test tube insertion and pipette-based fluid transfer.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2025-07-20T17:53:59Z)
• Elastic Tactile Simulation Towards Tactile-Visual Perception [58.44106915440858]
  We propose Elastic Interaction of Particles (EIP) for tactile simulation. EIP models the tactile sensor as a group of coordinated particles, and the elastic property is applied to regulate the deformation of particles during contact. We further propose a tactile-visual perception network that enables information fusion between tactile data and visual images.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2021-08-11T03:49:59Z)
• OmniTact: A Multi-Directional High Resolution Touch Sensor [109.28703530853542]
  Existing tactile sensors are either flat, have small sensitive fields or only provide low-resolution signals. We introduce OmniTact, a multi-directional high-resolution tactile sensor. We evaluate the capabilities of OmniTact on a challenging robotic control task.
  arXiv  Detail & Related papers  (2020-03-16T01:31:29Z)

This list is automatically generated from the titles and abstracts of the papers in this site.

This site does not guarantee the quality of this site (including all information) and is not responsible for any consequences.