Recent advancements in robotics have led to significant improvements in sight, hearing, and movement capabilities. However, the sense of touch has always been a challenging aspect for robots to replicate effectively. At CES 2026, Ensuring Technology unveiled a revolutionary artificial skin that aims to provide robots with a human-like sensitivity, allowing them to interact with the world in a more nuanced manner rather than just encountering obstacles.
The company introduced two innovative products, Tacta and HexSkin, tailored to address the long-standing deficiency in robotic touch technology. Humans heavily rely on touch to perform tasks such as grasping objects, applying appropriate force, and adjusting instantly to changes. In contrast, robots often lack comprehensive feedback mechanisms. Ensuring Technology’s objective is to bridge this gap by emulating how human skin perceives and processes tactile information.
Tacta is a sophisticated multi-dimensional tactile sensor designed for robotic hands and fingers. Packed with 361 sensing elements per square centimeter and capable of sampling data at 1000Hz, Tacta offers sensitivity comparable to human touch. Despite its high density, the sensor is remarkably thin at just 4.5mm and integrates sensing, data processing, and edge computing functions into a single module. During CES, Ensuring demonstrated the application of Tacta on a robotic hand, featuring 1,956 sensing elements distributed across the fingers and palm, creating a comprehensive network of tactile awareness.
Going beyond individual sensors, HexSkin expands tactile capabilities to cover larger surfaces. With a hexagonal tile-like design, HexSkin can conform to complex curved shapes, making it suitable for humanoid robots. The significance of enhancing robots’ sense of touch was showcased at CES 2026 through various demonstrations of advanced robots with improved coordination, balance, and agility.
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