TactileReflex: Noise-Statistics-Driven Vision-Tactile Reflex Control for Force-Sensitive Manipulation

• URL: http://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23568v1
• Date: Fri, 22 May 2026 12:35:28 GMT
• Title: TactileReflex: Noise-Statistics-Driven Vision-Tactile Reflex Control for Force-Sensitive Manipulation
• Abstract summary: We present TactileReflex, a three-channel closed-loop controller that extracts three image-level proxies, shear intensity, contact intensity, and center of pressure.<n>As a self-contained and interpretable controller, TactileReflex can serve as a plug-and-play safety layer beneath high-level manipulation pipelines.
• Score: 17.644869460066413
• License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/
• Abstract: Manipulating fragile deformable containers, such as disposable plastic cups filled with liquid, demands real-time grip-force adaptation within an extremely narrow force margin: insufficient force causes slip, while excessive force irreversibly deforms the thin wall. Existing approaches struggle to achieve such force-sensitive manipulation tasks. We propose a noise-statistics-based calibration-driven reflex control paradigm with vision-based tactile sensing: by analyzing the sensor's intrinsic noise characteristics (via a brief static-hold-and-unload protocol), we directly derive all controller thresholds, eliminating external force calibration, trial-and-error manual tuning, or material-specific physical models. Instantiating this paradigm, we present TactileReflex, a three-channel closed-loop controller that extracts three image-level proxies, shear intensity ($S_y$), contact intensity ($F_n$), and center of pressure ($C$), from dual visuo-tactile sensors and drives prioritized reflex channels at ~12 Hz for slip suppression, weight-adaptive release, and force protection. Each channel closes the loop directly on its proxy via noise-derived thresholds. Ablation demonstrates that only the full three-channel system is able to prevent irreversible container deformation (5/5 success vs. at most 1/5 for partial configurations). In a dynamic pouring task, fixed-effort baselines fail in all 10 attempts due to pose drift, while TactileReflex achieves 9/10 success across two water volumes. As a self-contained and interpretable controller, TactileReflex can serve as a plug-and-play safety layer beneath high-level manipulation pipelines, including haptic-free VR teleoperation and vision-language-action (VLA) policies.

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