The barren ground of tactile sensors five years ago has now evolved into a prime investment destination, luring industry titans into the fray.

By 2025, the robot tactile sensing sector has truly blossomed into a hotbed for investors.

On December 2, Daimeng Robotics unveiled the completion of a new strategic financing round, securing hundreds of millions of yuan from the China Mobile Leading Fund. This marks the second financing round in just three months for the robotic vision and tactile sensor manufacturer, which was nurtured by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

Back in August, the tactile sensor sector witnessed a surge in financing. Weitai Robotics, Daimeng Robotics, and Pacini successively announced funding acquisitions. Pacini, in particular, completed a hundreds-of-millions-of-yuan Series A++++ round, led by JD.com, marking its third Series A financing round this year.

Xiaomi, through Hanxing Venture Capital, made a strategic investment in Weitai Robotics. Founded in January 2024, Weitai Robotics' founder is a protégé of Professor Edward Adelson, the visionary behind MIT's GelSight technology.

Qianjue Robotics also announced the completion of a hundreds-of-millions-of-yuan Pre-A round, marking its third financing round in 2025, with investors including Li Auto, Hillhouse Venture Capital, and other prominent institutions.

Daimeng Robotics' Angel+ and Angel++ rounds attracted investors like Kinzon Capital, Jinding Capital, Guozhong Capital, and Lenovo Capital. To date, the company has secured four rounds of financing, fostering a diverse capital ecosystem comprising “state-owned capital, market-driven venture capital, and industry giants.”

The frequent influx of capital not only underscores the market's high regard for the tactile sensor sector but also underscores the pressing need for autonomous control over core upstream components in the industrial chain. From technological advancements to price upheavals, from application diversification to ecosystem construction, tactile sensors are undergoing a profound industrial metamorphosis.

01 Technological Breakthroughs Shattering Monopolies

The robot tactile sensing sector's allure for numerous industry giants and capital stems from significant technological breakthroughs.

The realization of embodied AI necessitates physical interaction between robots and the real world, with tactile modality being a crucial perception. Tactile sensing is pivotal for the deployment of dexterous hands, which, in turn, are central to the hardware deployment of humanoid robots, often dubbed the “last centimeter” for large-scale commercial application.

In recent years, Chinese companies have successfully broken overseas technological monopolies in the tactile sensor sector, pioneering multiple independent innovation technology routes.

Prior to 2019, the localization rate of high-end tactile sensors was less than 1%, with robot high-end tactile modules in specific fields heavily reliant on overseas imports.

To tackle these “bottleneck” issues, Chinese research teams have advanced through multiple parallel technology paths.

Flexible electronics technology has emerged as a key breakthrough. New flexible tactile sensors employ flexible substrates and miniaturized designs, achieving pressure response sensitivity of 5 milliseconds, measurement accuracy errors controlled at a high level of 0.1%–0.01%, and passing 540 million pressure cycle tests, with a lifespan exceeding 20 years.

In the global sensor technology landscape, vision-based tactile sensor technology is a key route for high-resolution tactile perception. For a considerable time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) held a monopoly over vision-based tactile perception technology. In 2009, MIT's Professor Edward Adelson proposed the GelSight vision-based tactile perception technology based on the trichromatic light principle.

Daimeng Robotics has successfully pioneered a high-resolution vision-based tactile perception technology route independent of trichromatic light. The company's technical lead explained that their innovative “monochromatic vision-based tactile” technology route circumvents overseas patent barriers, significantly reducing computing power and transmission bandwidth requirements while maintaining high precision.

With over 3 billion yuan in national special funding during the 14th Five-Year Plan period to support the localization and substitution of core components for intelligent robots, companies have been able to focus on core technology breakthroughs.

Pasini Perception Technology has introduced its self-developed ITPU multidimensional tactile sensing technology, integrating nearly a thousand ITPU multidimensional tactile sensing units to achieve tactile perception across 15 dimensions, including pressure, temperature, texture, and hardness.

Its co-founder, Nie Xiangru, reminisced, “Throughout the entire 14th Five-Year Plan period, our company dedicated itself to one goal: continuously enhancing the tactile perception capabilities of robots.” This technological breakthrough enables robotic dexterous hands to adeptly perform delicate tasks such as screwing in light bulbs, showcasing broad application prospects in precision manufacturing, medical assistance, and other fields. It marks a true realization of autonomous control in key robot components in China.

02 Cost Revolution: From Tens of Thousands to Hundreds of Yuan

Technological breakthroughs have also ignited a profound price revolution.

The price of tactile sensors has plummeted in just five years. Nie Xiangru, co-founder of Pasini Perception Technology, highlighted the stark contrast: “Five or six years ago, a single tactile sensor cost as much as 100,000 yuan. At this year's World Robot Conference, our product's unit price starts at 199 yuan.”

Daimeng Robotics has also slashed the price of its vision-based tactile sensors to 1,299 yuan, compared to previous prices of 6,000–7,000 yuan for similar products from Europe and the United States, and 2,000–3,000 yuan for domestic products.

The price drop has directly fueled market demand growth.

Pasini's revenue has soared at a rate of 8–10 times annually, with overseas revenue expected to account for more than 20%, having penetrated markets in the United States, Japan, Germany, and elsewhere.

Since launching its first-generation product in April 2025, Daimeng Robotics has maintained monthly orders of several thousand vision-based tactile sensors, with rapidly escalating production scales significantly reducing manufacturing costs.

The price drop of tactile sensors has had a profound impact on the entire humanoid robot industrial chain.

Dexterous hands constitute one-fourth to one-third of the total cost of humanoid robots, with tactile sensors being a significant component of dexterous hand costs. The price reduction of tactile sensors has directly driven down the overall cost of dexterous hands.

For instance, in a 17-drive 5-sensor dexterous hand, the total value of the five fingertip sensors is 18,000 yuan, accounting for 35% of the hand's cost. With sensor prices dropping to the hundred-yuan level, the overall cost of dexterous hands is expected to decrease significantly, thereby driving down the total cost of humanoid robots.

Industry companies are charting further cost reduction paths. Lingxin Qiaoshou aims to reduce the price of its O-series dexterous hand products from the thousand-yuan level to 499 yuan within three years, approaching consumer-grade pricing.

With material innovation and technological progress, such as the ionic conductor material technology developed by Wutong Sensing and Control, the performance and cost optimization of tactile sensors will continue.

03 From Lab to Thousands of Industries

Thanks to technological breakthroughs and price advantages, tactile sensors are rapidly transitioning from laboratory research to industrial applications, spanning multiple high-value fields such as smart manufacturing, intelligent logistics, and healthcare.

In precision grasping scenarios, tactile sensors can discern the hardness and weight information of objects, enabling robots to adeptly grasp fragile or tiny items like eggs and chips. Zhang Lei, founder and CEO of Hangzhou Taiwei Cloud Innovation, is exploring the application of embodied AI technology in the textile industry. To enable robots to “understand fabrics,” vision-based tactile signals are almost indispensable sensing units.

Zhang Lei explained that fabrics are among the most challenging materials to handle in industry. “Fabrics can slip, fold, stretch, and wrinkle, and different materials have varying friction, thickness, flexibility, and tension.”

In such cases, an additional vision-based tactile sensing signal can aid robots in better understanding the material and texture of fabrics, further enhancing operational efficiency.

In the realm of smart manufacturing, tactile sensors also play a pivotal role. Daimeng Robotics' vision-based tactile sensors have emerged as the global leader in shipment volume for similar products, successfully penetrating high-barrier scenarios such as smart manufacturing, intelligent logistics, and laboratory automation.

Qianjue Robotics is providing tactile perception solutions for Enlighten Robotics and collaborating with CATL on proof-of-concept research for battery assembly using robotic hands in laboratories.

With the 15th Five-Year Plan proposing to vigorously develop embodied AI, robot companies are poised for new development opportunities. Nie Xiangru, co-founder of Pasini Perception Technology, stated that they aspire to apply their technology in more scenarios over the next five years, such as healthcare, elderly care, including special rescue, retail consumption, and further applications in logistics.

Despite significant strides, tactile technology still confronts several challenges. Cost and performance deficiencies remain hurdles that vision-based tactile sensor manufacturers need to overcome.

Du Bo, the R&D lead at Daimeng Robotics, pointed out that the company's current customers primarily hail from robot large model manufacturers, dexterous hand manufacturers, and some research and education users. “Everyone's understanding of tactile perception varies, so at this stage, vision-based tactile sensor manufacturers also need to tailor non-standardized products according to different customer needs.”

Several industry insiders highlighted that engineering applications are currently the main bottleneck. Luo Jun, CEO of Beijing Bay Area Silicon Valley Innovation Technology Co., Ltd., believes that it will “take at least another 10 years” for humanoid robots to achieve large-scale commercial applications. When a human hand touches an object, it can swiftly judge its properties and adjust the force, which requires massive data and precise sensor support, representing a complex systemic engineering challenge.

Tang Jincao, Chairman of Shuimu Capital, analyzed that future development directions should focus on reducing costs, enhancing reliability, strengthening system-level integration, and establishing unified certification and testing standards to fully meet the stringent demands of humanoid robots for sensors.

Facing these challenges, leading companies are seeking breakthroughs through ecosystem collaboration. The cooperation between China Mobile and Daimeng Robotics is a prime example: the operator's vast network infrastructure and computing power network can support the massive data transmission demands generated by robot tactile perception; while Daimeng Robotics' high-precision tactile technology can convert physical world interactions into high-quality data. Together, they aim to create a “technology + scenario + ecosystem” benchmark for implementation.

With the rapid iteration of benchmark products like Tesla's Optimus, the market demand for tactile sensors that can endow robots with a “sense of touch” is surging. The transition from “lab demonstrations” to “industrial line components” will be the main theme for tactile sensor companies in the next five years. Only by addressing engineering, standardization, and cost control challenges can tactile sensors truly empower the robot industry and achieve a value leap from “capable of movement” to “capable of working.”

* Image sourced from the internet. Please contact for removal if there is any infringement.