MIT spinoff GelSight creates affordable, mini tactile sensor

Organization Name: GelSight

Country: USA

Website: gelsight.com

Year Founded: 2011

Number of Employees: 11-50

Innovation Class: Technology, Product & Services

Innovation Subclass: Product Introduction

Description:

The GelSight Mini is a tactile sensor that gives robots a sense of touch. The sensor measures just 32 mm wide and 28 mm thick. GelSight Mini gives researchers optimized 2D and 3D images of material surfaces. It does this by relying on data captured by GelSight’s elastomeric tactile sensing platform, which leverages the ROS, PyTouch and Python. The GelSight Mini is detected like a webcam, so there is no need to install software to get started.

Analysis:

GelSight Mini can be used in a range of things, from industrial-style two-finger grippers to bionic hand research and development. The sensor’s compact design, and GelSight’s provided 3D CAD files of adapters for integration, make it easy to install into an existing system.

The company spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the company’s founders developed technologies in the fields of 3D imaging, perceptual modeling and signal processing.

ROS compatibility, frame grabbers and Python scripts are all provided by the company, allowing users to get started right away with unique AI and computer vision tasks.

GelSight Mini is an affordable and compact tactile sensor with a plug-andplay set-up. It could help reduce the barrier of entry into robotics and touchbased scanning for corporate research and development, academics, and hobbyists.

RR – Brianna Wessling