Humanoid
UltraSense is arguing that ultrasound can solve the wear and tear problem at the point of tactile sensing, positioning protected sub-surface ultrasound as the architecture that can scale for physical AI. The company frames the challenge bluntly: robots can already see, plan, navigate, and move with sophistication, but manipulation still depends on reliable touch.
Physical AI is moving from digital reasoning into real-world interaction, and the open question is no longer whether robots need tactile sensing but which tactile architecture can scale. For humanoid hands, dexterous grippers, logistics robots, service robots, and industrial systems, touch must detect contact, map force, sense shear and slip, and understand material interaction.
Physical AI is moving from digital reasoning into real-world interaction, and the open question is no longer whether robots need tactile sensing but which tactile architecture can scale.
Many tactile and electronic-skin approaches rely on flexible electrical sensing layers placed on or near the contact surface. These include capacitive, piezoresistive, piezoelectric, triboelectric, and impedance-based structures integrated into elastomers, flexible substrates, conductive networks, or multilayer films. UltraSense acknowledges these technologies have advanced the field, but contends that for high-duty-cycle robotic fingers and grippers, electronic skin faces a scaling challenge: the sensing layer often sits close to the harshest mechanical environment on the robot.
That environment includes repeated compression, abrasion, contamination, humidity, temperature variation, cleaning exposure, and material aging. Even when encapsulated, UltraSense notes, a surface-coupled stack remains tied to the outer skin, which over time can introduce wear, hysteresis, creep, delamination, baseline drift, and recalibration burden. For a laboratory prototype these issues may be manageable, but for a commercial robotic hand operating over millions of contact cycles, they become central to product viability. UltraSense believes the better path is protected sub-surface ultrasound.
UltraSense’s position lands as physical AI takes a dedicated track at RoboBusiness 2026, scheduled for Oct. 20 and 21 in Santa Clara, Calif., where tactile sensing for manipulation is set to be part of the conversation.
Source: The Robot Report