The limitations of rigid fingertips in the precise andalgorithmic study of manipulation have been discussed in many works,some dating back more than a decade. Despite that fact, much of thework in dexterous manipulation has continued to use the"point-contact" model for finger-object interactions. In fact, mostexsisting tactile sensing technologies are not adaptable todeformable fingertips.

In this work we report on experimentalresults obtained with a deformable tactile sensor whose properties arewell-suited to manipulation. The results presented here show that thesensor described provides a rich set of tactile data.