Meta, the tech giant behind Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, recently announced its work on a robotic hand equipped with advanced tactile sensors that will enable AI models to “perceive and interact with their surroundings and coexist safely with humans.”
The new tactile fingertip, named Digit 360, is designed in collaboration with GelSight and Wonik Robotics. Unlike consumer-oriented products, these sensors are intended for scientists to help AI models experience touch-based interaction and awareness. According to Meta, Digit 360 offers human-level, multimodal sensing capabilities, allowing AI to detect and respond to changes in their environment.
Digit 360 is powered by on-device AI models that process information locally, reducing latency in responses to touch. Meta has publicly released the code and design for Digit 360, hoping to aid in developing immersive, touch-enabled virtual environments. Learn more about this in Meta’s official release on Digit 360.
The company also introduced Digit Plexus, a comprehensive hardware-software solution that can integrate various tactile sensors for fingertip and skin touch on a single robotic hand. This system collects sensory data and transmits it to a host computer for processing, which could be useful in a wide range of AI-powered robotics applications.
GelSight will handle the manufacturing and distribution of Digit 360, set to launch next year, while Wonik Robotics will lead the development of the Allegro Hand, an AI-integrated robotic hand using the Digit Plexus platform.
Meta further revealed Planning And Reasoning Tasks in humaN-Robot Collaboration (PARTNR), a benchmark for evaluating AI’s collaborative performance with humans. PARTNR includes 100,000 natural language tasks set within Meta’s Habitat simulated environment, comprising 60 houses and over 5,800 unique objects, allowing researchers to measure AI effectiveness in real-world scenarios. For further details, see Meta’s PARTNR announcement.