Advancing Ubiquitous Tactile Sensing through
Comprehensive Tooling for Resistive Matrix-Based
Sensors
Name
murphy-devinmur-meng-eecs-2025-thesis.pdf
Description
Thesis PDF
Size
50.22 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ccdc4ff83849cf2e7c57305cbb39a2b8
Author(s)
Murphy, Devin
Advisor(s)
Matusik, Wojciech
Date Issued
September 2025
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
Resistive matrix-based tactile sensors offer a scalable and intuitive approach to capturing human-environment interactions, yet deploying them in real-world systems remains challenging because they must remain portable, adaptive, and long-lasting. This thesis presents the WiReSens Toolkit, an open-source hardware and software platform for developing resistive tactile sensing systems that meet the demands of real world applications. The toolkit features adaptive hardware for interfacing with resistive sensors and a web-based GUI that mediates access to otherwise complex functionality, including 1) multi-device programming and wireless visualization across three distinct communication protocols 2) autocalibration methods for adaptive sensitivity and 3) intermittent data transmission for low-power operation. As a use case for the toolkit, the thesis then introduces a method for the automatic design and fabrication of custom tactile sensing gloves using flexible printed circuit boards (FPCBs), enabling rapid, scalable production. Together, these contributions lower barriers to adoption and support broader exploration of tactile sensing in HCI, robotics, and ubiquitous computing.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
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