Q&A: Warehouse robots that feel by sight

More than a decade ago, Ted Adelson set out to create tactile sensors for robots that would give them a sense of touch. A handheld imaging system powerful enough to visualize the raised print on a dollar bill. The technology was spun into GelSight, to answer an industry need for low-cost, high-resolution imaging. An expert in both human and machine vision, Adelson was pleased to have created something useful. But he never lost sight of his original dream: to endow robots with a sense of touch.