Tactile sensing on the robot side
So far this course has focused on getting a sense of touch back to a human operator, but the robot itself also needs to sense touch to act well, whether it's operating under direct control or more autonomously. Tactile sensors built into a gripper's fingers can measure how much force is being applied at each contact point, and some can also detect the early signs of an object slipping, a subtle shift in pressure distribution that happens before an object visibly starts to fall.
This kind of onboard tactile sensing complements, rather than replaces, whatever force feedback is sent to a human operator. A gripper that can detect its own slip locally can react in milliseconds, tightening its grip long before that information could travel over a network and back. It's one of the clearest cases where giving the robot its own sense of touch, independent of the operator, makes the whole system faster and safer.