Taccel: Scaling Up Vision-based Tactile Robotics via High-performance GPU Simulation

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Li, Yuyang, Du, Wenxin, Yu, Chang, Li, Puhao, Zhao, Zihang, Liu, Tengyu, Jiang, Chenfanfu, Zhu, Yixin, Huang, Siyuan
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Li, Yuyang
Du, Wenxin
Yu, Chang
Li, Puhao
Zhao, Zihang
Liu, Tengyu
Jiang, Chenfanfu
Zhu, Yixin
Huang, Siyuan
author_facet Li, Yuyang
Du, Wenxin
Yu, Chang
Li, Puhao
Zhao, Zihang
Liu, Tengyu
Jiang, Chenfanfu
Zhu, Yixin
Huang, Siyuan
contents Tactile sensing is crucial for achieving human-level robotic capabilities in manipulation tasks. As a promising solution, Vision-Based Tactile Sensors (VBTSs) offer high spatial resolution and cost-effectiveness, but present unique challenges in robotics for their complex physical characteristics and visual signal processing requirements. The lack of efficient and accurate simulation tools for VBTSs has significantly limited the scale and scope of tactile robotics research. We present Taccel, a high-performance simulation platform that integrates IPC and ABD to model robots, tactile sensors, and objects with both accuracy and unprecedented speed, achieving an 18-fold acceleration over real-time across thousands of parallel environments. Unlike previous simulators that operate at sub-real-time speeds with limited parallelization, Taccel provides precise physics simulation and realistic tactile signals while supporting flexible robot-sensor configurations through user-friendly APIs. Through extensive validation in object recognition, robotic grasping, and articulated object manipulation, we demonstrate precise simulation and successful sim-to-real transfer. These capabilities position Taccel as a powerful tool for scaling up tactile robotics research and development, potentially transforming how robots interact with and understand their physical environment.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2504_12908
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Taccel: Scaling Up Vision-based Tactile Robotics via High-performance GPU Simulation
Li, Yuyang
Du, Wenxin
Yu, Chang
Li, Puhao
Zhao, Zihang
Liu, Tengyu
Jiang, Chenfanfu
Zhu, Yixin
Huang, Siyuan
Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Tactile sensing is crucial for achieving human-level robotic capabilities in manipulation tasks. As a promising solution, Vision-Based Tactile Sensors (VBTSs) offer high spatial resolution and cost-effectiveness, but present unique challenges in robotics for their complex physical characteristics and visual signal processing requirements. The lack of efficient and accurate simulation tools for VBTSs has significantly limited the scale and scope of tactile robotics research. We present Taccel, a high-performance simulation platform that integrates IPC and ABD to model robots, tactile sensors, and objects with both accuracy and unprecedented speed, achieving an 18-fold acceleration over real-time across thousands of parallel environments. Unlike previous simulators that operate at sub-real-time speeds with limited parallelization, Taccel provides precise physics simulation and realistic tactile signals while supporting flexible robot-sensor configurations through user-friendly APIs. Through extensive validation in object recognition, robotic grasping, and articulated object manipulation, we demonstrate precise simulation and successful sim-to-real transfer. These capabilities position Taccel as a powerful tool for scaling up tactile robotics research and development, potentially transforming how robots interact with and understand their physical environment.
title Taccel: Scaling Up Vision-based Tactile Robotics via High-performance GPU Simulation
topic Robotics
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.12908