Allegro Hand V5 Sense

Overview

The Wonik Robotics Allegro Hand V5 Sense is a tactile-enhanced variant of the Allegro Hand V5, adding pressure sensors across the finger surfaces to provide rich haptic feedback data. This tactile sensing capability extends the platform's research utility into areas of contact-rich manipulation, where understanding the distribution and magnitude of contact forces is critical for developing robust grasping and manipulation strategies. The V5 Sense retains the same 16-DoF kinematic architecture as the standard V5, with tactile sensing as an additive capability layer.

Key Specifications

• Degrees of freedom: 16 (identical to V5)
• Tactile sensors: Pressure sensor arrays across finger surfaces
• Interface: ROS compatible, with dedicated tactile data drivers
• Mounting: Standard robot arm interface (compatible with most research arms)
• Price: Contact Wonik Robotics for current pricing (premium over standard V5)

The tactile data streams are integrated into the ROS driver stack, providing researchers with synchronised kinematic and haptic data for learning and control experiments. The sensor arrays are designed to be replaceable, as finger surfaces are subject to wear in manipulation experiments.

Use Cases

The V5 Sense is particularly relevant for research into contact-rich manipulation, tactile-driven grasping, sim-to-real transfer with tactile feedback, and learning from human demonstration where contact state is an important signal. As the research community moves towards training manipulation policies on large datasets, tactile data from platforms like the V5 Sense represents an important additional modality.

UK research groups working on imitation learning, reinforcement learning with contact state estimation, and surgical robotics simulation use the V5 Sense as a reference hardware platform.

Buying Used

The secondary market for V5 Sense units is more limited than for the standard V5, given the specialist tactile sensing capability and smaller production volume. Tactile sensor array condition is a critical check on any used unit, as sensor degradation significantly reduces research utility. Contact Wonik Robotics for inspection and refurbishment services before committing to a used purchase.

Alternatives to Consider

• Shadow Robot Dexterous Hand with BioTac sensors for an alternative high-DoF tactile hand
• GelSight-instrumented Allegro Hand V5 for a lab-built tactile sensing solution on the standard platform
• Allegro Hand V5 (standard) if tactile sensing is not required for the specific research application