Defining the Human Touch for Machines
TouchScale focuses on defining tactile semantics, safety boundaries, and human acceptability framworks required for real-world machine-to-human interaction.
Powered by real-world, commercially deployed human touch testbeds.
The Problem
Robots can see. Robots can hear.
But they don’t understand human touch.
As machines leave factories and enter human spaces, physical interaction becomes unavoidable and unacceptable without shared rules.
Today:
- Human comfort is poorly defined
- Touch data is hard to collect safely
- No standard exists for acceptable machine touch
- Physical interaction without rules is dangerous
Touch is the last unsolved interface between humans and machines.
Built Where Touch Actually Happens
Most approaches rely on:
- Lab simulations
- Human-to-human demonstrations
- Short-term, low-intent interactions
TouchScale is oriented around something fundamentally different:
1. Real-world, continuous machine-to-human touch:
Not simulations. Not demos. Real interactions.
2. High-intent users in commercially operated environments
Stable behavior, meaningful feedback, long-term operation.
3. Protocol-driven data, not opportunistic signals
Designed to support learning, evaluation, and standards from day one.
TouchScale is not a hardware company. Not a simulation tool. Not a one-off dataset
What We Build
Tactile Semantics
Turning raw tactile signals into human-interpretable meaning:
pressure, rhythm, contact patterns, and perceived intent.
Safety & Comfort Boundaries
Quantifying where touch transitions from acceptable to uncomfortable or unsafe, across people, contexts, and interaction patterns.
Human Acceptability Benchmarks
Evaluating whether a machine’s touch is perceived as natural, appropriate, and trustworthy.
Together, these define enforceable rules machine must follow in human spaces.
Why Now?
Robots are leaving controlled environments and entering human lives.
Robots are rapidly entering:
- Homes
- Healthcare
- Public spaces
- Consumer environments
Failures in physical interaction won’t be theoretical.
They will be felt, remembered, and regulated.
Before machines touch humans at scale,
the rules must be defined.
The Window is Open
- Continuous data collection under controlled protocols
- Commercially deployed machine-to-human touch environments
- Thousands of real user interactions per month
We’re building the foundation of human-acceptable touch for machines.
If you’re an investor, researcher, or engineer interested in this, let’s talk.