- Department of Mechanical Engineering, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
This paper addresses the challenge of detecting and recovering from slip during robotic grasping of unknown objects, with the objective of establishing a robust no on-site or per-object calibration slip-recovery controller for an anthropomorphic hand. This hand is equipped with tri-axial piezoresistive tactile force sensors on each finger, and the proposed approach is validated through experimental analysis. The proposed methodology eliminates the need for object- or pose-specific calibration, explicit friction modelling, dense tactile arrays, line-of-sight vision, and a data-hungry learning process, enabling real-time implementation with minimal computation and integration effort. Using a commonly acquired online baseline from initial readings, slip is detected from relative changes between consecutive samples of the baseline-subtracted resultant tangential force, and object engagement is determined when the normal force reading deviates from a no-slip baseline beyond a preset threshold. Upon detecting slip, each finger increases its gripping force in closed-loop control until the slip stops, while enforcing motor-current protection in finger control to prevent actuator overload and object damage. Experiments were conducted on objects with different rigidity, weight, and surface textures, including an aluminium tube, a plastic water bottle, and a sponge. Additionally, the response time and variations in gripping force were evaluated. The results demonstrate rapid slip response via localized per-finger correction, good object conformability, and effective re-stabilization under different lifting speeds and sudden external disturbances. The per-finger design utilizes the minimum necessary correction at the offending finger, reducing unnecessary force increases on other fingers and improving grasp efficiency. This approach represents a practical solution for warehouse picking, human–robot collaboration, and in situ manipulation where task-specific calibrations, visual access, or training datasets are impractical.
1 Introduction
In prehensile manipulation, grasping is the foundational action upon which most manipulation behaviours are built, making it a central and active topic in the robotics community (Billard and Kragic, 2019). Its significance spans various domains, including industrial applications (Zhang et al., 2025a), agriculture (Wang et al., 2025b), food handling (Liu et al., 2023b), human-robot interactions (Ortenzi et al., 2021), and tasks involving delicate or unstructured environments (Jahanshahi and Zhu, 2024; Meng et al., 2022). In addition to grasp planning, the ability to sense and respond to slippage is equally crucial. The former establishes feasible and stable contact conditions, while the latter provides the real-time feedback necessary to maintain stability as conditions alter during operations. Grasp stability can be guaranteed by using geometric methods such as form closure or caging, which reduce the dependence on friction (Aceituno-Cabezas et al., 2023). However, these methods may not always work for unknown object geometry or pose, limited hand posture, or task constraints. In these situations, using reactive tactile feedback is a valuable complementary safety measure.
Nowadays, slip detection remains a fundamental challenge for both robotic grippers and anthropomorphic hands during grasping, particularly when manipulating unknown objects. Failure to quickly detect and correct slippage can lead to object loss, damage, and task failure (Romeo and Zollo, 2020). To address this issue, significant advancements have been made through the development of tactile sensors, which are configured either as standalone units or in array structures. These sensors can detect changes in electrical signals (Liu et al., 2023a; Yu et al., 2024), magnetic fields (Man et al., 2024), optical fiber (Mun et al., 2024), vibrations (Komeno and Matsubara, 2024), and convert them to useful force information for identifying slippage during grasping. Furthermore, visual-tactile sensors are another approach, in which the deformation of the elastomeric layer is translated into force information (Zhang et al., 2025b). However, several limitations exist. The need for calibration can complicate their use. Additionally, factors such as the frame rate of the camera, sensitivity to lighting conditions, and the heavy computational load of image processing can limit detection speed and affect the robustness and reliability of these sensors in slip detection applications.
Traditional slippage detection approaches depend on friction models (Pennestrì et al., 2016), which require prior knowledge of material properties and contact conditions, particularly the friction coefficient. The latter is typically absent for unknown objects. Transforming signals of contact forces from time to frequency domain provides another route (Romeo and Zollo, 2020; Qu et al., 2023), but it can introduce processing latency and may produce incorrect detections when the measurement is affected by non-slip vibrations, such as actuator motion and impacts. Recently, machine learning techniques have been employed to detect slip events directly from sensor data (Hu et al., 2023). However, they require substantial training data and adaptation to specific objects, limiting their generalizability across different tasks and contact conditions. Consequently, despite progress in both sensing and control, robust and scalable slip detection for everyday manipulation remains an open problem.
Current slip detection methods face several practical limitations. Regarding sensor design, there is a growing interest in array-based tactile skins. However, these often require dense sensor configurations and calibration processes for each sensor. For control strategies, model-based approaches often depend on measurements of normal and tangential forces, as well as known friction parameters, which are usually accompanied by the sensor calibration process. On the other hand, data-driven methods rely on large, specialized datasets tailored to specific sensors and tasks, along with significant computational resources. Moreover, both control approaches usually require prior knowledge of the objects being handled. Additionally, many of these solutions are designed primarily for parallel grippers or near-normal fingertip contact, rather than for the variable and oblique contact conditions found in anthropomorphic hands. What is lacking is a simple, calibration-free slip detection and recovery strategy that operates at the per-finger level, uses only low-dimensional tri-axial force measurements without vision or extensive learning, and remains robust when grasping unknown objects with varying poses and surface properties.
In this article, a closed-loop slip-detection method for an anthropomorphic hand during oblique fingertip contact is proposed, utilizing tri-axial piezoresistive tactile sensors. Referenced to a no-slip baseline estimated online from the initial readings, slippage is detected by the temporal variation of resultant tangential force computed from consecutive tri-axial tactile readings, and a consistent object contact is guaranteed by the normal force reading through a preset threshold value. Furthermore, motor-current protection is integrated directly into the same real-time control loop, improving stability without compromising actuator safety. This motivates the current study to develop a robust, calibration-free method for slip detection and recovery during the grasping of unknown objects using an anthropomorphic hand, equipped with tri-axial tactile force sensors on every finger.
2 Related works
2.1 Tactile sensing technologies
Recent reviews have surveyed advances in tactile sensing for human–robot interaction (Jassim et al., 2025) and in pushing and grasping manipulation in robotic arms (Efendi et al., 2025). In contact detection, piezoresistive sensors are widely used to detect contact onset and localize interaction points. Early studies have shown that soft sensor arrays are capable of producing real-time force maps with sub-millimeter precision, which is advantageous for localization in manipulation, establishing an example for feedback-driven grasp control (Hammond et al., 2014). Furthermore, recent work embeds piezoresistive networks directly into compliant robot hands and grippers, allowing them to maintain stable grasps when vision is unavailable, which includes fully 3D-printed wearable finger arrays for pressure-point localization and large-strain piezoresistive skins that also enable proprioceptive estimation and object classification (Pei et al., 2021; Yong et al., 2022). Moreover, in prosthetics, printable piezoresistive composites and skin-inspired tactile elements have been integrated to support safe interaction and haptic perception in unstructured environments (Lathers et al., 2017; Wu et al., 2018).
2.2 Control strategies for grip adjustment
On control strategies, piezoresistive sensors enable slip detection and closed-loop grip adjustment by capturing resistance fluctuations linked to shear forces. This capability has been demonstrated in both rigid and soft grippers, allowing real-time adaptation when handling fragile objects that require minimal force. Slip detection methods can be broadly categorized into three approaches. The traditional model approach utilizes thresholds or model-based rules that focus on normal force rate, tangential components, or friction models to identify incipient slip (Stachowsky et al., 2016; Liu and Howe, 2023; Deng et al., 2017). In contrast, electrical signal detection methods directly analyze electrical readouts from piezoresistive arrays, utilizing per-taxel voltage drops or current spikes during micro-slip as indicators (Chen et al., 2024; 2021). Changes in directional force, such as an increase in specific direction, can also indicate the onset of sliding (Zhang et al., 2015). These methods can be sensitive to contact orientation, as object contact at an oblique angle can introduce normal-shear coupling, which biases tangential force estimates. This confusion may lead to incorrect detection unless pose-aware compensation or decoupling techniques are applied. Slip has also been inferred from contact acceleration or vibration, which typically requires dedicated inertial sensing elements and higher-bandwidth sampling and processing (Howe and Cutkosky, 1989). Consequently, their applicability can be constrained by the complexity of sensor integration and their sensitivity to non-slip vibrations. Lastly, the learning approach leverages time-space patterns from sensor arrays to generalize across various objects and grasp types. The limitation here mainly concerns the need for large labelled datasets to effectively cover a variety of objects, surfaces, and angles during the learning process (Zhao et al., 2025; Wang et al., 2025a).
2.3 Applications in dexterous/anthropomorphic hands
On the application side, many studies focus on the positioning of the sensing surface parallel to the object, in which the sensing surface is placed parallel to the object by using either parallel grippers (Sui et al., 2024; Stachowsky et al., 2016) or anthropomorphic hands (Gong et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2015; Deng et al., 2017) with fingertips with near-normal contact. However, in real-world grasping situations, each finger makes contact with the object at different oblique angles. Recently, some researchers have started using anthropomorphic hands equipped with tactile sensors in the fingertips, utilizing advanced machine learning techniques (Zhao et al., 2025; Chen et al., 2025). These developments highlight the need to create designs that can robustly adapt to pose variations and develop testing protocols that accommodate a range of contact angles.
3 Strategy and implementation for slip detection
3.1 Problem statement
Most tactile sensor-based slip detection methods are typically designed for parallel grippers, which assume that the contact between the fingertips and the surface of an object is nearly parallel. In contrast, anthropomorphic hands often make contact with an object at various angles across different fingers, creating a challenge for current slip detection systems. The proposed method addresses this issue by introducing a per-finger closed-loop slip controller. This controller uses force readings from a tri-axial piezoresistive force tactile sensor and infers slip from temporal changes in the resultant tangential force between consecutive readings, referenced to a runtime no-slip baseline. Therefore, the proposed controller avoids the need for explicit friction modeling, data-driven slip classifiers, inertial sensing elements, or frequency-domain processing. Here, calibration-free denotes that no additional user-performed calibration, object- or pose-specific tuning, or friction-parameter identification is required beyond the factory force output from the sensor and a short runtime baseline acquisition. This approach is designed to be robust against various uncertainties associated with the object, such as rigidity, weight, and surface textures. Additionally, the per-finger sensor configuration allows for independent slip detection for each finger. Control is only activated for the finger that detects a slip, which prevents excessive force from being applied by the other fingers on the object. This simple approach ensures robust slip detection with good object conformability while maintaining safe and stable grasp control.
3.2 Research methods
3.2.1 Hardware setup
The experimental platform is shown in Figure 1a, which consisted of a 7-degrees-of-freedom (DoF) robot arm (LRB iiwa 14 R820, KUKA), equipped with a five-fingered, cable-driven anthropomorphic hand (RH8D, Seed Robotics), which has 8 DoFs. In practice, only the DoFs relevant for controlling the bending of the fingers were employed. Also, in the design of the hand, the ring and pinky fingers are actuated by a single motor, resulting in both digits sharing a single DoF. Therefore, a total of 4 DoFs were used in this study. Moreover, the motor controlling the finger bending provides 12-bit resolution. The finger is fully straight at motor position 0 and fully bent at motor position 4,095.
Figure 1. System setup for this study. (a) Overall system setup. (b) Anthropomorphic hand used in this study. The local coordinates of each tactile sensor are illustrated, with the z-axis pointing out of the page, which is not shown in the figure.
Each fingertip is equipped with a three-axis piezoresistive tactile sensor (FTS3, Seed Robotics) that exhibits a resolution of 1 mN and a force measurement range of 30 N, with a sampling frequency of 50 Hz. The sensor measures forces along the x, y, and z directions based on their respective local coordinates, as shown in Figure 1b. Real-time data were collected from sensors, allowing for the computation of various parameters for slip detection and grasp control. Given that the ring and pink fingers shared a motor, the average of their respective sensor readings was used to control the shared DoF.
3.2.2 Research design
The slip detection control consists of four phases, as illustrated in Figure 2. In phase 1, the robot’s fingers move toward the object until they gently make contact with its surface, which is monitored by measuring the force in the z-direction. Once contact is established, phase 2 involves the robot arm lifting the object to create a potential slipping event. In Phase 3, the slip detection control is activated, during which three operations occur concurrently. The system maintains object engagement by continuously monitoring the z-directional force, detecting slip by analyzing changes in the resultant tangential force between consecutive readings, and ensuring circuit protection by monitoring the electrical currents of the motors. Based on these measurements, commands are sent to each motor individually to adjust the gripping force and prevent slippage, as demonstrated by a stable grasp in the final stage.
Figure 2. Experimental procedure: (a) Engaging the object. (b) Moving the robot arm upward to induce slip once all fingers touch the object. (c) Implementing slip control. (d) Achieving a stable grasp.
3.3 Detection algorithm
This section presents a slip detection algorithm that controls the grasping of each finger using tri-axial tactile feedback. The algorithm has been implemented and validated on a real-world robot setup, as shown in Figure 1. This method involves monitoring the force in the z-direction to ensure that the object remains engaged. Changes in resultant force within the xy-plane between consecutive readings serve as indicators of potential slip. When a slip is detected, commands are sent to the corresponding motor to adjust the gripping force accordingly. Moreover, a circuit protection mechanism is integrated to prevent electrical current overload in the motor. This integrated approach allows for calibration-free, real-time slip detection and correction across the fingers without prior knowledge of the properties of the object.
The pseudocode is shown in Algorithm 1, and was applied to each finger independently. The force readings from the tactile sensors were stored in the matrix
3.3.1 Baseline forces acquisition phase
Before the program started, the first 20 sensor readings were taken and averaged to create the static baseline force vector
Also, the baseline xy-planar resultant force
3.3.2 Object engagement phase
Following the establishment of baseline force values, the object engagement phase was initiated. During this phase, contact detection was performed using closed-loop control, which involved continuous monitoring of
Additionally, the motor position
where
Furthermore, a termination condition was established, according to Equation 6, when
Such a condition occurred when the sensor was misaligned with the target object. In such cases, adjustment of the gripping posture was necessary to ensure proper object handling.
3.3.3 Slip detection phase
In the slip detection phase, the grasp was continuously stabilized while maintaining contact and ensuring the safety of the actuators within a closed-loop system. A three-iteration process was carried out within each loop. The first iteration focused on ensuring object engagement, during which Equation 5 was used to update
The second iteration involved slippage detection, which was accomplished through continuous monitoring of the xy-planer resultant force
Also,
In this work,
If
where
The final iteration was the circuit protection, in which the motor position was adjust by monitoring
where
3.4 Object engagement detection
Three objects with different rigidity, weight, and surface textures were selected for this study, as shown in Table 1. As mentioned in Section 3.1, the orientations of the sensors and the object during the grasping process were not guaranteed to be parallel. To mitigate this issue and ensure a consistent initial contact, a fixed value for
After determining
Figure 3. Evaluation of the applicability of
The results demonstrated that all motors could be effectively controlled using feedback from corresponding sensor readings, and their positions were maintained once
3.5 Slip detection on different objects
After finding
Figure 4. Results of the slipping test to estimate
Then the slip detection test was carried out, and the results are shown in Figure 5. Also, the force variations and response time were shown in Table 4. From the results, it was shown that slippage could be successfully detected through monitoring
Table 4. Variation in forces and the response time of each finger with different objects during slip detection control.
Therefore, slippage was successfully stopped on all tested objects by controlling
3.6 Slip detection at different lifting speed
The detection algorithm was also evaluated against different lifting speeds. In this study, an aluminium rod was lifted at three vertical speeds: 100 mm/s, 300 mm/s, and 500 mm/s. The results are illustrated in Figure 6. Also, the force variations and response time were shown in Table 5. It was found that for vertical speeds of 100 mm/s and 300 mm/s, the
Table 5. Variation in forces and the response time of each finger with aluminium rod at different lifting speeds during slip detection control.
The results showed that, despite varying lifting speeds,
3.7 Sudden external disturbance detection
The robustness of the algorithm to sudden external disturbances was also evaluated in this study. After completing the slip-detection and establishing a stable grasp, the object was held in a stationary position. A manual pull was then applied vertically to simulate a sudden external disturbance. The results, shown in Figure 7, illustrated the response following the vertical lifting.
It was observed that this sudden pull induced a rapid fluctuation in
Overall, the test results verified the robustness of the proposed algorithm against sudden external disturbances, as well as its ability to maintain a safe and stable grasp after the disturbance was removed.
3.8 Discussion
3.8.1 Significance of the proposed control method
A comparison of existing slip-detection approaches with our proposed controller is presented in Table 6. The comparison, along with the experimental results, demonstrates that our control strategy, using simple tri-axial piezoresistive sensors, achieves simple, robust, and responsive slip detection in an anthropomorphic hand. By relying on
In the proposed controller, calibration-free means that no additional user-performed per-sensor or per-object calibration was conducted, and the slip decision relies on the runtime baseline and consecutive changes rather than fitted friction parameters. A key advantage of the proposed algorithm is that corrective actions are localized, and commands are sent only to the motor whose corresponding finger detects a slip, thereby increasing gripping force. This approach reduces unnecessary force exerted on fingers in no-slipping conditions, improving grasp efficiency and potentially reducing wear on both sensors. Additionally, the experimental results indicate that a compact set of threshold parameters
3.8.2 Limitations and future research
Despite the advantages of the current method, several limitations remain. In this article, calibration-free indicates that the controller does not need object or pose-specific tuning or friction parameter identification. It relies on a runtime baseline and changes in force rather than fitted models. First, the method assumed a fixed hand posture during grasping because the wrist DoFs were fixed. The test objects were positioned to ensure successful grasps, thereby avoiding misalignment issues. Second, the thresholds
These limitations motivate several potential directions for future research. One approach is to develop an adaptive thresholding scheme that adjusts
4 Conclusion
This article introduces a calibration-free, per-finger force-feedback slip controller for an anthropomorphic hand that employs tri-axial tactile sensing and simple thresholding for real-time slip detection and correction on unknown objects. The design allows for localized adjustments for each finger, enhancing grasp efficiency and reducing unnecessary force on stable contacts. Experiments demonstrate rapid responses and stable grasps with controlled grip force across various object types and conditions, demonstrating the effectiveness of tri-axial sensing for slip control without calibration. However, limitations include a fixed hand posture due to reduced degrees of freedom, reliance on offline-tuned thresholds, and validation on a limited range of tasks. Future work will explore adaptive thresholding, vision-based grasping enhancements, and learning methods to improve performance on unseen objects and tasks while maintaining the framework’s simplicity and real-time functionality.
Data availability statement
The original contributions presented in the study are included in the article/Supplementary Material, further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author.
Author contributions
DCYW: Writing – review and editing, Formal Analysis, Writing – original draft, Project administration, Methodology, Data curation, Software, Conceptualization, Investigation, Validation. ZZ: Project administration, Methodology, Supervision, Data curation, Conceptualization, Writing – original draft, Writing – review and editing, Funding acquisition, Resources, Investigation.
Funding
The author(s) declared that financial support was received for this work and/or its publication. This work was supported by the Discovery Grant (RGPIN-2024-06290) and Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program Grant (555425-2021) of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
Conflict of interest
The author(s) declared that this work was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Generative AI statement
The author(s) declared that generative AI was not used in the creation of this manuscript.
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Supplementary material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frobt.2026.1735467/full#supplementary-material
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Keywords: anthropomorphic hand, calibration-free, robotic grasping, slip detection, tactile sensors
Citation: Wong DCY and Zhu ZH (2026) Calibration-free per-finger force-feedback slip control for grasping by anthropomorphic hand with tri-axial tactile sensors. Front. Robot. AI 13:1735467. doi: 10.3389/frobt.2026.1735467
Received: 30 October 2025; Accepted: 02 January 2026;
Published: 09 February 2026.
Edited by:
Jamshed Iqbal, University of Hull, United KingdomReviewed by:
Isak Karabegović, University of Bihać, Bosnia and HerzegovinaYuri Gloumakov, University of Connecticut, United States
Adhan Efendi, National Chin-Yi University of Technology, Taiwan
Copyright © 2026 Wong and Zhu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Zheng H. Zhu, Z3podUB5b3JrdS5jYQ==