Weitai Robotics

A Shanghai vision-based tactile-sensor company founded by a co-developer of the GelSight fingertip sensor.

Usually known as Weitai Robotics, the company was founded in Shanghai in January 2024. Founder Rui Li studied for his PhD at MIT under Edward Adelson, the inventor of GelSight, and helped develop the GelSight fingertip sensor; its core team comes out of MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). Vision-based tactile sensing works by placing a small camera beneath a soft rubber surface and photographing how that surface deforms on contact, computing contact shape and force from the image. Weitai builds vision-based tactile sensors, bionic fingertips, and dexterous hands around this approach, with a focus on tasks such as precision assembly that need coordinated hand-eye feedback. In April 2025 it announced combined angel and angel+ rounds of nearly RMB 100 million, led by Xiaomi's strategic investment arm.

ExampleWhen a robot arm plugs in a connector, the vision-based tactile sensor on its fingertip can tell whether the plug is misaligned and adjust its position accordingly.

Related

Vision-Based Tactile Sensor · GelSight · Tactile Sensor · Dexterous Hand · Contact-rich Manipulation · Robotic Assembly

Sources

新京报：纬钛机器人完成近亿元天使轮及天使+轮融资 (Chinese)
观察者网：小米领投的纬钛机器人完成亿元融资 (Chinese)

As of

2025-04