Humanoid robots are expected to enter our homes soon, and a sense of touch is crucial for safe and capable humanoids. Homes are challenging, unstructured and highly dynamic environments.
Tactile Sensor Technology
Q&A with Dr. Alexander Schmitz, CEO and co-founder of | Xela Robotics
What led you to co-found XELA Robotics and choose to specialize in tactile sensor technology?
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While working on object handling and manipulation with robots, I realized that one of the major limitations was their missing sense of touch. Without it, a robot can never be sure whether it really did what it was supposed to do. Vision alone is not precise enough, and occlusions happen regularly. I therefore developed a series of tactile sensors, culminating in uSkin at Waseda University. When we demonstrated uSkin® at an exhibition, we received requests to purchase it, and that is how XELA Robotics was founded in 2018.
Why can’t robotics companies make their own tactile sensors?
A good tactile sensor needs to have a lot of difficult-to-achieve properties, e.g. providing a lot of information in very limited physical space. We have a lot of experience in this field. And while other companies have tried and invested a lot of money to make equally good sensors, our customers have experienced that uSkin is the best solution available for many real-world use-cases. It does not make sense for other companies to invest a lot of time into trying to recreate something that we have more than 10 years of expertise and patents in.
What makes uSkin tactile sensors different/more effective than other solutions on the market?
Why does XELA Robotics say it adopts a technology agnostic approach?
Some robot hand companies make their own tactile sensors, but our business model is different. We do not build robot hands or grippers ourselves; we integrate uSkin into whatever hardware our customers already have or plan to use. We know our strength: making the best tactile sensors available on the market. We leave robot hand and gripper development to others. We see strong potential in humanoid hands, which is a key focus area for us, while also supporting the simpler grippers that meet the needs of many industrial applications today.
What applications can benefit the most from XELA Robotics technology? Can you share a use case?
We have many use cases across manufacturing, logistics and humanoids. To take a simple example, consider cable insertion. Inserting a cable into a socket sounds straightforward, but small misalignments from vision alone can damage components. Tactile sensors provide information about the in-hand orientation of the cable, the forces during insertion and the small adjustments needed to complete the task successfully.
You currently serve a b2b market; do you see a day when you move into consumer-facing applications?
Humanoid robots are expected to enter our homes soon, and a sense of touch is crucial for safe and capable humanoids. Homes are challenging, unstructured and highly dynamic environments. Tactile sensors enable adaptable manipulation of various objects. Also, products not at all related to robots can benefit, for examples for enhanced user-interfaces like super-responsive mini-joysticks.
Has tactile sensor technology reached full maturity? What other challenges are there yet to be addressed by the industry?
uSkin is already a readily available product across multiple industries. The next frontier is building complete tactile solutions on top of the hardware, including software features such as weight, hardness and slip detection. That is where much of our current development effort is focused.
You’ve indicated your company is moving aggressively into the U.S. market. What prompted the change?
The U.S. market has always been important to XELA Robotics, and we are seeing a strong push for Physical AI there. The U.S. has world-leading capabilities in AI, and bringing those capabilities into the physical world is a natural next step.
The content & opinions in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of RoboticsTomorrow
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