Touchlab Robotics
About
About Touchlab Robotics
Touchlab Robotics develops flexible electronic skin that gives robots distributed tactile feedback. Sensor surfaces measure contact location and force across grippers, hands, arms or larger body areas, helping a control system detect touch and regulate interaction with people and objects.
The company supplies sensor hardware, signal electronics and integration software for manipulation, teleoperation and human-robot collaboration. Engineers can apply the skin to existing platforms and combine its data with vision and joint sensing. Touchlab focuses on the tactile layer while robot partners provide motion, grasp planning and application-specific safety controls.
Products
- TACTO Robotic Fingertip
e-skin
Supply
Supply chain relationships
- Prensilia
Outbound - Sensing Perception - Touchlab delivered a custom 16-taxel sensorised thumb and supporting electronics for Prensilia Mia Hand
Source - Shadow Robot
Outbound - Components - Touchlab Robotics supplies TACTO tactile e-skin for Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand
Source - Tesollo
Outbound - Components - Touchlab Robotics supplies TACTO tactile e-skin for Tesollo DG-5F hand
Source
Funding
Investors
- Octopus Ventures - Lead - VC - 1 funding event - first seen 2022-02-23
Team
- Dr. Zaki Hussein - Founder - Established Touchlab’s e-skin business and served its first clients.
Research
- Touchlab publishes Tactile Intelligence white paper for robotics
2025-05-20 - Research Publication - Touchlab published its Tactile Intelligence white paper describing tactile sensing as a missing layer for robotic manipulation. The paper outlines the company's high-speed tactile sensor suite and its role in grasp quality, slip detection, and touch-rich robot learning. This is the strongest clean research-release event on the company's own dated content trail.
Source
Timeline
Events
- 2026-06-18 - Product Launch - Touchlab releases TACTO tactile e-skin at ICRA 2026
Official integrations include the Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand and Tesollo DG-5F. Touchlab says its sensor engineering focuses on activation force, sensitivity, noise, cross-talk, drift and mechanical integration.
Source - 2026-01-16 - Partnership - Touchlab completes tactile sensor integration project with Prensilia MIA Hand
Touchlab published a case study detailing integration of its fingertip technology into the thumb of Prensilia's MIA Hand. The project ran from May to July 2025 and culminated in a manufacturable tactile-sensorized thumb design validated through load testing. This is a high-signal partnership and capability event because it shows Touchlab technology integrated into a named robotic hand platform.
Source - 2025-09-12 - Product Launch - Touchlab releases open-source drivers and robot models for tactile sensors
Touchlab announced release of open-source drivers and robot models for its tactile sensors. The company said the release was intended to simplify integration of tactile sensing and electronic skin into robot hands and grippers. The dated official post documents GitHub-hosted C++, ROS, and robot models plus Pip Python drivers; publication metadata lists September 12, 2025.
Source - 2025-05-20 - Research Publication - Touchlab publishes Tactile Intelligence white paper for robotics
Touchlab published its Tactile Intelligence white paper describing tactile sensing as a missing layer for robotic manipulation. The paper outlines the company's high-speed tactile sensor suite and its role in grasp quality, slip detection, and touch-rich robot learning. This is the strongest clean research-release event on the company's own dated content trail.
Source - 2022-02-23 - Funding - Touchlab closes $4.8 million seed round led by Octopus Ventures
Touchlab announced a $4.8 million seed round to support development of tactile sensing technology for robotics. This is the clearest early financing event tied specifically to Touchlab's robotics and electronic-skin platform on a dated third-party source. The financing supports continued product development, deployment scaling, and commercialization of the company's robotics platform.
Source
Relations
Relationships
- Prensilia
Robotic Hand Integration Partner - Tactile sensor integration into Prensilia MIA Hand thumb (Touchlab case study).
- Tesollo
Tactile E Skin Integration - Touchlab TACTO tactile e-skin is officially integrated into Tesollo DG-5F.
Context
Shared workflows
- IR-LOCK
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Zendar
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Nexa
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Carbic
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Allvision IO
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- TDK-InvenSense
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Murata
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- LightWare LiDAR
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Carnegie Robotics
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Steinmetz
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Hubble Network
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- smartmicro
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Sensrad
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Opsys Tech
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
- Nerian Vision
workflow adjacency - Autonomous System Sensing
Context tags
- Autonomous System Sensing - Workflow - Profile QA supports Autonomous System Sensing.
- Adaptive industrial manipulation - Capability - Profile QA supports Adaptive industrial manipulation.