{"ID":2882828,"CreatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","UpdatedAt":"2026-06-01T04:54:23.091178241Z","DeletedAt":null,"paper_url":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09836","arxiv_id":"2508.09836","title":"Embodied Tactile Perception of Soft Objects Properties","abstract":"To enable robots to develop human-like fine manipulation, it is essential to understand how mechanical compliance, multi-modal sensing, and purposeful interaction jointly shape tactile perception. In this study, we use a dedicated modular e-Skin with tunable mechanical compliance and multi-modal sensing (normal, shear forces and vibrations) to systematically investigate how sensing embodiment and interaction strategies influence robotic perception of objects. Leveraging a curated set of soft wave objects with controlled viscoelastic and surface properties, we explore a rich set of palpation primitives-pressing, precession, sliding that vary indentation depth, frequency, and directionality. In addition, we propose the latent filter, an unsupervised, action-conditioned deep state-space model of the sophisticated interaction dynamics and infer causal mechanical properties into a structured latent space. This provides generalizable and in-depth interpretable representation of how embodiment and interaction determine and influence perception. Our investigation demonstrates that multi-modal sensing outperforms uni-modal sensing. It highlights a nuanced interaction between the environment and mechanical properties of e-Skin, which should be examined alongside the interaction by incorporating temporal dynamics.","short_abstract":"To enable robots to develop human-like fine manipulation, it is essential to understand how mechanical compliance, multi-modal sensing, and purposeful interaction jointly shape tactile perception. In this study, we use a dedicated modular e-Skin with tunable mechanical compliance and multi-modal sensing (normal, shear...","url_abs":"https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.09836","url_pdf":"https://arxiv.org/pdf/2508.09836v1","authors":"[\"Anirvan Dutta\",\"Alexis WM Devillard\",\"Zhihuan Zhang\",\"Xiaoxiao Cheng\",\"Etienne Burdet\"]","published":"2025-08-13T14:16:42Z","proceeding":"cs.RO","tasks":"[\"cs.RO\"]","methods":"[]","has_code":false}