Related papers: RA-Touch: Retrieval-Augmented Touch Understanding …

The use of data-driven techniques for tactile data processing and classification has recently increased. However, collecting tactile data is a time-expensive and sensor-specific procedure. Indeed, due to the lack of hardware standards in…

Our sense of touch is essential and permeates in interactions involving natural explorations and affective communications. For instance, we routinely judge the ripeness of fruit at the grocery store, caress the arm of a spouse to offer…

Data-driven approaches struggle with precise manipulation; imitation learning requires many hard-to-obtain demonstrations, while reinforcement learning yields brittle, non-generalizable policies. We introduce VisuoTactile Local (ViTaL)…

Tactile representation learning (TRL) equips robots with the ability to leverage touch information, boosting performance in tasks such as environment perception and object manipulation. However, the heterogeneity of tactile sensors results…

Tactile sensing plays an irreplaceable role in robotic material recognition. It enables robots to distinguish material properties such as their local geometry and textures, especially for materials like textiles. However, most tactile…

High-resolution (HR) image perception remains a key challenge in multimodal large language models (MLLMs). To overcome the limitations of existing methods, this paper shifts away from prior dedicated heuristic approaches and revisits the…

In this work, we introduce the problem of cross-modal visuo-tactile object recognition with robotic active exploration. With this term, we mean that the robot observes a set of objects with visual perception and, later on, it is able to…

This paper investigates how visual texture presentation influences tactile perception when interacting with electrostatic cloth displays. We propose a visuo-haptic system that allows users to pinch and rub virtual fabrics while feeling…

Robotic manipulation of cloth has applications ranging from fabrics manufacturing to handling blankets and laundry. Cloth manipulation is challenging for robots largely due to their high degrees of freedom, complex dynamics, and severe…

Tactile graphics are widely used to present maps and statistical diagrams to blind and low vision (BLV) people, with accessibility guidelines recommending their use for graphics where spatial relationships are important. Their use is…

Can a robot grasp an unknown object without seeing it? In this paper, we present a tactile-sensing based approach to this challenging problem of grasping novel objects without prior knowledge of their location or physical properties. Our…

Robots which interact with the physical world will benefit from a fine-grained tactile understanding of objects and surfaces. Additionally, for certain tasks, robots may need to know the haptic properties of an object before touching it. To…

Humans usually perceive the world in a multimodal way that vision, touch, sound are utilised to understand surroundings from various dimensions. These senses are combined together to achieve a synergistic effect where the learning is more…

Inferring physical properties can significantly enhance robotic manipulation by enabling robots to handle objects safely and efficiently through adaptive grasping strategies. Previous approaches have typically relied on either tactile or…

Camera-based tactile sensors provide robots with a high-performance tactile sensing approach for environment perception and dexterous manipulation. However, achieving comprehensive environmental perception still requires cooperation with…

The scaling of large language models to encode all the world's knowledge in model parameters is unsustainable and has exacerbated resource barriers. Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) presents a potential solution, yet its application to…

We introduce GEOTACT, the first robotic system capable of grasping and retrieving objects of potentially unknown shapes buried in a granular environment. While important in many applications, ranging from mining and exploration to search…

It is human to want to touch artworks, to feel their surface curvature and texture, their shapes and structures, and to feel the hand of the artist. Museum guards need to be constantly vigilant to protect art objects from adoring and…

Refreshable tactile displays (RTDs) are predicted to soon become a viable option for the provision of accessible graphics for people who are blind or have low vision (BLV). This new technology for the tactile display of braille and…

Vision-Language-Action (VLA) models have recently emerged as powerful generalists for robotic manipulation. However, due to their predominant reliance on visual modalities, they fundamentally lack the physical intuition required for…