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About

Vinicius Prado da Fonseca is a robotics researcher whose work sits at the intersection of tactile sensing, robotic manipulation, and computational intelligence. His research focuses on equipping robots with human-like sensory capabilities, particularly through the development of advanced tactile sensing systems, underactuated robotic hands, and machine learning-driven object recognition. Fonseca has made significant contributions to the field by demonstrating how touch data can be leveraged to estimate object orientation, recognize textures, and enable stable in-hand manipulation — challenges central to deploying robots in real-world environments such as healthcare, manufacturing, and hazardous settings. Among his most impactful contributions are foundational studies on touch sensing for humanoid robots (27 citations) and machine learning-based tactile object recognition (22 citations), alongside pioneering work on multimodal tactile datasets that support reproducible research in dynamic texture classification. His development of open-source hardware, including the BioIn-Tacto sensing module and the Ring Ada robotic hand, reflects a commitment to accessible, practical robotics. Additional work on sign language teaching through gesture recognition highlights the breadth of his human-robot interaction research. With a growing body of work accumulating over 160 citations, Fonseca has established himself as a notable voice in intelligent robotic manipulation and tactile perception.