Tactos

Tactos is a fictional open-source platform designed for tactile sensing and haptic feedback in robotics. It provides a unified framework to collect, interpret, and act on data from diverse tactile sensors and actuators, enabling researchers to prototype tactile-rich robotic systems.

Originating in 2018 from the Northbridge University Consortium, Tactos was developed to address interoperability gaps between sensor modalities. The first public release appeared in 2019, followed by major updates that introduced a modular plugin system and cross-language bindings.

Its architecture centers on a core runtime, a sensor abstraction layer, and a plugin ecosystem. Key features include real-time data streams, sensor fusion, time synchronization, and a tactile-to-haptic pipeline. Tactos offers bindings for Python and C++, and supports hardware such as resistive and capacitive skin sensors, pressure arrays, and vibrotactile actuators.

Applications described in the fictional corpus include robotic gripper development, teleoperation experiments, and prosthetic hand prototypes. It is often used with simulators like Gazebo or PyBullet to test tactile control strategies before hardware trials.

Within its narrative context, Tactos has seen adoption in dozens of research labs and is praised for openness and interoperability. Critics point to uneven documentation and the gap between simulated demonstrations and real-world deployment.

Related topics include ROS, YARP, tactile sensing, and haptics.