Marker information efficacy: guiding marker design through deformation information encoding in vision-based tactile sensing
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
TANG, Tonghui
Nanayakkara, Thrishantha
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Tactile perception is fundamental to manipulation and sensing, yet marker design in vision-based tactile sensors (VTS) remains largely unexplored. Conventional approaches assume that marker displacement alone suffices to characterise soft tissue deformation, without optimising marker geometry or spatial distribution. We introduce a systematic and design centric framework based on Marker Information Efficacy (MIE) that formalises how marker properties govern the encoding
of deformation information. Starting from generic marker matrices, we systematically examine how marker geometry and spatial distribution affect deformation encoding, force prediction, and computational efficiency. This analysis reveals that marker performance depends on how effectively marker design captures the dominant structure of the deformation field, thereby enabling the principled design of deformation-aligned markers for different sensing scenarios. As a representative case, the derived deformation-aligned marker demonstrates that MIE-guided marker design enables accurate
force prediction using simpler predictive models with reduced computational cost. These findings establish MIE as a general and extensible design framework for VTS, effectively transforming optical markers from passive tracking tools into deformation-information-encoding components, and enabling efficient, real-time tactile sensing in contact-rich robotic manipulation.
of deformation information. Starting from generic marker matrices, we systematically examine how marker geometry and spatial distribution affect deformation encoding, force prediction, and computational efficiency. This analysis reveals that marker performance depends on how effectively marker design captures the dominant structure of the deformation field, thereby enabling the principled design of deformation-aligned markers for different sensing scenarios. As a representative case, the derived deformation-aligned marker demonstrates that MIE-guided marker design enables accurate
force prediction using simpler predictive models with reduced computational cost. These findings establish MIE as a general and extensible design framework for VTS, effectively transforming optical markers from passive tracking tools into deformation-information-encoding components, and enabling efficient, real-time tactile sensing in contact-rich robotic manipulation.
Date Issued
2026-09-14
Date Acceptance
2026-08-27
Citation
npj Robotics, 2026, 4, pp.1-24
ISSN
2731-4278
Publisher
Nature
Start Page
1
End Page
24
Journal / Book Title
npj Robotics
Volume
4
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2026. Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
License URL
Identifier
10.1038/s44182-026-00115-x
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
50
Date Publish Online
2026-09-14