# Visual Contact Pressure Estimation for Grippers in the Wild

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2303.07344 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.07344/

## Key facts

- Cited by 5 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 13 Mar 2023.

## Built on by (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [On Bringing Robots Home](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.16098/) (2023)
- [EgoPressure: A Dataset for Hand Pressure and Pose Estimation in Egocentric Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.02224/) (2024)
- [EgoPressDiff: Multimodal Video Diffusion for Egocentric UV-Domain Hand-Pressure Estimation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.06872/) (2026)
- [NeuralActuator: Neural Actuation Modeling for Robot Dynamics and External Force Perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.11734/) (2026)
- [A Model-based Visual Contact Localization and Force Sensing System for Compliant Robotic Grippers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00307/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Sensing contact pressure applied by a gripper can benefit autonomous and teleoperated robotic manipulation, but adding tactile sensors to a gripper's surface can be difficult or impractical. If a gripper visibly deforms, contact pressure can be visually estimated using images from an external camera that observes the gripper. While researchers have demonstrated this capability in controlled laboratory settings, prior work has not addressed challenges associated with visual pressure estimation in the wild, where lighting, surfaces, and other factors vary widely. We present a model and associated methods that enable visual pressure estimation under widely varying conditions. Our model, Visual Pressure Estimation for Robots (ViPER), takes an image from an eye-in-hand camera as input and outputs an image representing the pressure applied by a soft gripper. Our key insight is that force/torque sensing can be used as a weak label to efficiently collect training data in settings where pressure measurements would be difficult to obtain. When trained on this weakly labeled data combined with fully labeled data that includes pressure measurements, ViPER outperforms prior methods, enables precision manipulation in cluttered settings, and provides accurate estimates for unseen conditions relevant to in-home use.