Iontronic Triboelectric Sensing for Adaptive Robotic Perception before and during Contact

Abstract Adaptive robotic manipulation requires sensing systems capable of both anticipating contact and resolving haptic interactions. Existing triboelectric sensors operate through electron transport alone and are intrinsically limited to contact-triggered signal generation, preventing unified tele-perception and haptic perception. Here we introduce an iontronic triboelectric sensor (ITS) that exploits coupled ionic and electronic carrier transport to stabilize triboelectric charge generation while extending electrostatic perception beyond physical contact. Based on a PVDF-ionic liquid-TiO2 composite dielectric with optimized surface microstructuring, the ITS enables haptic pressure sensing over 0–70 kPa in the contact-separation mode and human-target tele-perception up to 1.1 m in the single-electrode mode. The same 1D-CNN is independently applied, achieving 91.3% accuracy for material pre-recognition before contact and 90.28% accuracy for material recognition during contact. Integrated with a robotic hand, the ITS enables closed-loop tele-perception–haptic perception–action feedback for adaptive grasping, providing a self-powered multimodal platform for embodied intelligence and autonomous robotics.