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Sensors 传感器

Lidar, vision, IMUs, force/torque and tactile sensors — how robots perceive the world and their own bodies.

Upstream Components 5 tracked companies 6 related stories

Perception is what separates a caged industrial arm from a robot that can act in an unstructured world. Lidar and depth cameras map surroundings; machine vision identifies and locates objects; IMUs sense balance and motion; and force/torque and tactile sensors give a robot the sense of touch it needs to grasp and assemble without crushing.

Autonomous mobility drove lidar to scale and collapsed its price, and that hardware is now flowing into robotics. The frontier for manipulation — especially humanoids — is touch: dense tactile skins and six-axis force sensing are early, fast-moving, and increasingly decisive for dexterous work.

What to watch

  • Lidar price collapse spilling from autos into robots
  • Tactile skins and six-axis force sensing for dexterity
  • Vision-language models fusing perception with reasoning

Key Players

Representative companies operating in this part of the value chain.

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Hesai Technology 禾赛科技 Shanghai · CN · est. 2014
Lidar

Lidar sensors for autonomous mobility and robotics.

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RoboSense 速腾聚创 Shenzhen · CN · est. 2014
Lidar

Lidar and perception solutions for robots and vehicles.

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SICK AG 西克 Waldkirch · DE · est. 1946
Sensors

Industrial sensors, safety laser scanners and machine vision.

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Ouster San Francisco · US · est. 2015
Lidar

Digital lidar sensors for robotics, industrial and automotive use.

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Hikrobot 海康机器人 Hangzhou · CN · est. 2016
AGV/AMR & Vision

Machine vision and mobile robots; a Hikvision affiliate.

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