# Soft-bubble: A highly compliant dense geometry tactile sensor for robot manipulation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1904.02252 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1904.02252/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 3 Apr 2019.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Dexterity from Touch: Self-Supervised Pre-Training of Tactile Representations with Robotic Play](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.12076/) (2023)
- [Visuo-Tactile Transformers for Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.00121/) (2022)
- [See to Touch: Learning Tactile Dexterity through Visual Incentives](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.12300/) (2023)
- [GelSight Wedge: Measuring High-Resolution 3D Contact Geometry with a Compact Robot Finger](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.08851/) (2021)
- [ManiWAV: Learning Robot Manipulation from In-the-Wild Audio-Visual Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19464/) (2024)
- [Neural feels with neural fields: Visuo-tactile perception for in-hand manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.13469/) (2023)
- [PolyTouch: A Robust Multi-Modal Tactile Sensor for Contact-rich Manipulation Using Tactile-Diffusion Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.19341/) (2025)
- [DenseTact: Optical Tactile Sensor for Dense Shape Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.01367/) (2022)
- [AcTExplore: Active Tactile Exploration of Unknown Objects](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.08745/) (2023)
- [Sim2Real Manipulation on Unknown Objects with Tactile-based Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.12170/) (2024)
- [DexSkin: High-Coverage Conformable Robotic Skin for Learning Contact-Rich Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.18830/) (2025)
- [Monocular Depth Estimation for Soft Visuotactile Sensors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01677/) (2021)
- [ViTaSCOPE: Visuo-tactile Implicit Representation for In-hand Pose and Extrinsic Contact Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.12239/) (2025)
- [TacCoRL: Integrating Tactile Feedback into VLA via Simulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.11743/) (2026)
- [Cross-Sensor Touch Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.09817/) (2025)
- [Monocular Reconstruction of Neural Tactile Fields](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12508/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Incorporating effective tactile sensing and mechanical compliance is key towards enabling robust and safe operation of robots in unknown, uncertain and cluttered environments. Towards realizing this goal, we present a lightweight, easy-to-build, highly compliant dense geometry sensor and end effector that comprises an inflated latex membrane with a depth sensor behind it. We present the motivations and the hardware design for this Soft-bubble and demonstrate its capabilities through example tasks including tactile-object classification, pose estimation and tracking, and nonprehensile object manipulation. We also present initial experiments to show the importance of high-resolution geometry sensing for tactile tasks and discuss applications in robust manipulation.