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arXiv · 2608.02080

Toward Geometry-Scalable Whole-Body Touch for Humanoids: A 3D-Printed Conformal EIT Skin

Haofeng Chen·Carson Kohlbrenner·Jiri Kubik·Lukas Rustler·Alexander Dickhans·Karel Bartunek·Alessandro Roncone·Hyosang Lee·Matej Hoffmann
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Abstract

Whole-body tactile sensing is a prerequisite for humanoids that operate in contact-rich human environments, but conventional taxel arrays scale poorly with surface area, wiring complexity, and robot-specific curvature. We present a conformal electrical impedance tomography tactile skin fabricated through a geometry-adaptable additive-manufacturing workflow. A flexible conductive TPU layer forms a continuous sensing domain, while contact-induced coupling with conductive patches produces boundary voltage changes that are reconstructed using a one-step Gauss-Newton EIT solver. We first characterize the electromechanical design space of the layered structure and show that low-resistance contact-enhancement patches and a porous conductive TPU sensing layer improve sensitivity while preserving printability. We then validate contact localization on a planar prototype, a curved U-shaped prototype, and a qualitative iCub-face-shaped geometry. The curved sensor achieves a mean localization error of 6 mm over 18 contact positions without supervised post-processing. These results suggest that additively manufactured tomographic skins can reduce the morphology-specific redesign burden for humanoid tactile coverage and provide a practical route toward large-area contact sensing for human-centered deployment.

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Haofeng Chen, Carson Kohlbrenner, Jiri Kubik, Lukas Rustler, Alexander Dickhans, Karel Bartunek, Alessandro Roncone, Hyosang Lee, Matej Hoffmann. 2026-08-03. Toward Geometry-Scalable Whole-Body Touch for Humanoids: A 3D-Printed Conformal EIT Skin. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.02080

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