Determine the full repetitive-loading lifetime improvement

Determine the full repetitive-loading lifetime improvement of the developed durable vision-based tactile sensor relative to commercial GelSight Mini and DIGIT sensors under the defined repetitive probe test conditions, including the point of functional failure.

Background

The developed sensors remained functionally usable when repetitive probe testing was discontinued after 5–8 days, whereas the commercial comparison sensors exhibited surface-film rupture after approximately 25–35 minutes. Because the developed sensors had not reached functional failure at the test endpoints, the study establishes only a lower bound on their repetitive-loading lifetime improvement. The unresolved issue is the actual lifetime and corresponding improvement factor under the specified accelerated loading protocol.

References

These observations establish an improvement of more than two orders of magnitude under the defined accelerated conditions, although the full improvement in repetitive-loading lifetime could not be determined because the developed sensors had not reached functional failure.

— A Durable Vision-Based Tactile Fingertip for Robotic Manipulation  (2608.24242 - Cottrell et al., 25 Aug 2026) in Section 7, Discussion; see also Section 8, Conclusion