PalmDex — Embodiment-Agnostic Tactile Manipulation Dataset
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About This Dataset
PalmDex is a multimodal robotic manipulation dataset featuring synchronized dual-camera video, dual-hand tactile sensing, and hand pose tracking across diverse real-world environments, collected via human teleoperation. Released in June 2026 under CC BY-SA 4.0, it is one of the only large-scale datasets providing dense tactile sensing data alongside RGB video for manipulation tasks. The embodiment-agnostic design — data is collected using human hands rather than a specific robot platform — enables retargeting to any dexterous robot hand. Demonstrations are annotated at the action-segment level with rich categorical labels covering grasp type, contact region, applied force range, and manipulation phase. PalmDex addresses the critical gap in tactile data availability identified by McKinsey as a structural bottleneck in the humanoid robot supply chain.
What is it?
PalmDex is a multimodal robotic manipulation dataset featuring synchronized dual-camera video, dual-hand tactile sensing, and hand pose tracking across diverse real-world environments, collected via human teleoperation. Released in June 2026 under CC BY-SA 4.0, it is one of the only large-scale datasets providing dense tactile sensing data alongside RGB video for manipulation tasks. The embodiment-agnostic design — collecting via human hands rather than a specific robot — enables retargeting to any dexterous robot hand.
Who is it for?
Researchers working on contact-aware manipulation and tactile sensing integration — the capability identified by McKinsey as a critical structural bottleneck in the humanoid robot supply chain. PalmDex provides training data for policies that must reason about contact forces, grasp stability, and surface texture rather than vision alone.
Key specifications
- •Modalities: RGB (dual camera), tactile (dual hand), proprioception, hand pose
- •Design: Embodiment-agnostic (human hand collection)
- •Annotation: Action-segment level with grasp type, contact region, force range, manipulation phase
- •Format: MP4, HDF5, JSON
- •License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — commercial use permitted
How it compares
PalmDex is the only large-scale dataset combining RGB and dense tactile sensing for manipulation. DexWild (CMU) and DexUMI (Stanford) cover dexterous manipulation without tactile modality. EgoTouch provides tactile data but at smaller scale. PalmDex's human-hand collection makes it retargetable to any dexterous hand platform — including the Inspire Hand targeted by DexUMI.
Limitations and access notes
Human hand data requires retargeting to robot kinematic structure. Share-alike requirement on derivatives (CC BY-SA 4.0). Tactile sensing hardware varies across platforms — transfer to robot tactile sensors requires calibration.
Tasks Covered
This dataset covers manipulation, dexterous-manipulation, pick-and-place tasks across human hands, dexterous robot hands robot platforms.
Access and Licensing
Citation
PalmDex Research Team (2026). PalmDex — Embodiment-Agnostic Tactile Manipulation Dataset. https://huggingface.co/datasets/Rimbot/PalmDex
Robot Embodiments
This dataset includes demonstrations collected using the following robot platforms.
- human hands
- dexterous robot hands
Professions trained on this dataset
Roles where robots trained on PalmDex — Embodiment-Agnostic Tactile Manipulation Dataset are being deployed
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Frequently Asked Questions
About PalmDex Research Team
PalmDex — Embodiment-Agnostic Tactile Manipulation Dataset is a Real Robot dataset maintained by PalmDex Research Team, released in 2026 under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license. The dataset permits commercial use. It covers manipulation, dexterous-manipulation, pick-and-place tasks using human hands, dexterous robot hands robot platforms. The full dataset is freely accessible at https://huggingface.co/datasets/Rimbot/PalmDex.