GelSight and Meta AI Introduce Digit 360 Tactile Sensor

Digit 360 deepens GelSight and Meta AI’s existing partnership and fosters a community-driven approach to robotics research

WALTHAM, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--GelSight, a pioneer in tactile intelligence technology, and Meta AI today announced Digit 360, an artificial fingertip-shaped tactile sensor that delivers rich and detailed tactile data by digitizing touch with human-level precision. Digit 360 will expand the field of tactile sensing research and signifies the next stage of the partnership between GelSight and Meta AI, established with the launch of the Digit tactile sensor in 2021.

Digit 360 is a fingertip-shaped tactile sensor equipped with over 18 sensing features, which will enable advancements in touch perception research and allow researchers to either combine its various sensing technologies or isolate individual signals for in-depth analysis of each modality. This new tactile specific optical lens can see the imprints all around the artificial fingertip, capturing more sensitive details about the surface touching the object. Over time, researchers can use Digit 360 to develop AI that can better understand and model the real world, including the physicality of objects, human-object interaction, and contact physics. Digit 360 significantly surpasses previous sensors, detecting miniature changes in spatial details, and captures forces as small as 1 millinewton.

Digit 360 leverages GelSight’s digital tactile sensing technology, which offers superhuman sensitivity and micron-level resolution. GelSight’s unique elastomeric and imaging-based tactile sensing solution digitizes the sense of touch, enabling robotic engineers to develop solutions for analysis of any surface regardless of material type or reflectivity, complex object manipulation, and many other dexterous tasks.

“GelSight and Meta AI share the same vision to make tactile sensing more ubiquitous and accessible,” said Youssef Benmokhtar, CEO of GelSight. “Digit 360 will advance the digitization of touch and unlock new applications in robotics with its ability to capture omnidirectional deformations on the fingertip surface.”

Beyond advancing robot dexterity, this breakthrough sensor has potential applications in medicine, prosthetics, virtual reality, telepresence and more. For virtual worlds, Digit 360 can help better ground virtual interactions with the environment to more realistic representations of object properties beyond their visual appearances. All code and designs developed using Digit 360 will be open-sourced by Meta AI.

“Since launching Digit in 2021 with GelSight, we’ve observed that every touch interaction has a unique profile produced by the mechanical, geometrical, and chemical properties of a surface,” said Jitendra Malik, Research Scientist Director, FAIR at Meta. “By leveraging multimodal signals, Digit 360 can act as a peripheral nervous system on a robot and will help scientists advance their research to build AI that can learn richer world models.”

GelSight will manufacture and distribute Digit 360, targeting wide availability next year. Members of the research community can apply to Digit 360 call for proposals to gain early access.

To learn more about GelSight, please visit https://gelsight.com/.

About GelSight

GelSight is a pioneer in digital, imaging-based tactile intelligence. The proprietary technology that was invented at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides extremely detailed and rapid surface characterization, enabling several surface measurement applications and robotic sensing capabilities. Its elastomeric 3D imaging systems are currently in use in aerospace, automotive, forensics and in many robotic research labs throughout the world. GelSight is Digital Touch and Feel. For more information, please visit https://gelsight.com/.