Nothing suggested that we could come close to creating artificial touch as in human skin, but Xela Robotics insists on breaking that limit, where a sector divided between sophisticated hands and rigid industrial claws, the Japanese company took another route, not creating a new hand, but transforming its surface.

The integration of uSkin three-dimensional touch sensors in the Tesalow DG5F reveals this concept, the anthropomorphic hand receives a soft and porous coating distributed on the tips of the fingers, phalanges and palm, creating a sensory map that changes the way the machine perceives contact. There are 12 detection points per finger compressed into modules of approximately 21 by 26 mm, capable of measuring forces in three axes.

Not just if something is being held, but if it is spinning or slipping about to escape. The strategy aligns with the tradition of the University of Guaseda, where Xela emerged, and with the renaissance of humanoid robotics in Japan. In the midst of industrial consortia and high-level research, the company reinforces the philosophy of hardware as a foundation, but it is the plan for 2026 that really moves the technological axis.

The reduction of the 4x4 mm sensors to 2.5 by 2.5, a miniaturization that dramatically increases the density of two points of contact and in the universe of manipulation more density means more information, is the difference between just touching an object and actually understanding it.

The sensors excel at forces as light as 0.1 gram force, equivalent to about 1 mNewton. Compared to the sensitivity of approximately 5 m of the Sharp Wave hand, they indicate a potential to capture the exact instant when contact is formed, it is the border where touch becomes perception.

This horizontal approach, offering skin instead of complete hands, creates another type of competition, the company positions itself as a supplier of the nerves that are missing from manufacturers who have already solved the musculature and according to its CEO it is precisely this absence of touch that prevents automation from advancing.

The demonstration at CES 2026 will be the first public test of this promising fusion between skin and robotics, if it meets expectations, mechanical manipulation can enter an era in which sensitivity is not an accessory, but a foundation.