Insider Brief
- Tacta Systems unveiled TactaBot, a dexterous robotic hand system designed to give robots better touch and control when handling small, flexible or delicate parts.
- The Palo Alto, Calif.-based company said TactaBot combines the Tacta Hand, Skill Capture and a Dexterous Intelligence AI model for tasks including precision electronics assembly, connector-cable seating and wire-harness assembly.
- Tacta said TactaBot is scheduled to ship in early 2027 for initial customers in electronics, AI infrastructure and automotive manufacturing, with later expansion planned for medical devices, aerospace and defense.
Tacta Systems has unveiled TactaBot, a dexterous hand system to give robots a better sense of touch and control when handling small, flexible or delicate parts.
According to the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, TactaBot combines what it calls the Tacta Hand along with a Skill Capture system and a Dexterous Intelligence AI model. Together, they are designed to help robots perform tasks that have been difficult to automate, with the company pointing to precision electronics assembly, seating connector cables and assembling wire harnesses as examples.
“Everyone is talking about a trillion-dollar market for robots, but the technology isn’t there yet, because robots still can’t use their hands,” co-founder and CEO Vikram Pavate said in the announcement. “The hand is the hardest problem in robotics, and it can’t be solved without touch. We built the entire stack, the hands, the sensing, and the intelligence, so robots can finally do the physical work our economy depends on, and so we can start bringing that work home.”
Tacta indicated the product is scheduled to ship in early 2027 for initial customers in electronics, AI infrastructure and automotive manufacturing. The company plans to later expand the platform into medical devices, aerospace and defense.
The TactaBot System
The three core components are designed to tackle the robotics challenges of precision dexterity, sensors and data.
Tacta Hand: The human-scale robotic hand uses Tacta’s Fluidic Tendon actuation technology and has 15 independently actuated joints. The company said the hand is designed for precision, strength and speed in factory conditions, with serviceability in minutes and reliability over millions of cycles.
Tacta said the hand also uses tactile sensors smaller than a grain of sand. The sensors can detect pressure from 250 pascals to 700,000 pascals, sample 400 times a second and resolve temperature within one-tenth of a degree.
Skill Capture: The data-collection system is powered by the Tacta Glove, which workers wear while performing factory tasks. The glove records force, motion, video and temperature data from real work on the factory floor.
Tacta said the approach is designed to collect demonstrations of human dexterity without relying on teleoperation or human-operated grippers.
Dexterous Intelligence AI model: The model is trained on tactile skills collected through Skill Capture and then fine-tuned with task-specific data from customer factories. Tacta said the system is designed to help robots learn new tasks more quickly and adapt to variations in production work.
In June of last year, the company, which was founded by Pavate and executive chairman Andreas Bib, announced it had raised $75 million , including an $11 million seed round led by Matter Venture Partners and a $64 million Series A led by America’s Frontier Fund and SBVA. Tacta said its team has experience in advanced manufacturing, sensing and robotics, and that its co-founders have previously sold companies to Apple, Fujifilm and Lockheed Martin.
