PPS - Pressure Profile Systems

17/08/2026

Grip technique training usually comes down to two things: watching hand position, and asking how it felt.

FingerTPS II adds a third. The sensor sits directly on the fingertip during a simulated procedure, capturing contact force in real time without changing how the instrument is held.

Two trainees can look identical running the same task while gripping very differently, and FingerTPS II shows exactly where that difference is. The result: grip technique becomes a measurable curve, an objective way to compare trainees and track skill development alongside instructor observation.

Get in touch to talk through your application. More on FingerTPS II in the comments.

14/08/2026

A child-resistant cap that passes its torque spec is doing exactly what it's designed to do: it's hard to open. That's also why a patient with reduced grip strength can be locked out of their own medication.

Child-resistant closures are usually validated against a torque spec on a rig, confirming the cap resists a set opening force. That number doesn't say anything about how much grip force a hand, especially one with reduced strength or dexterity, has to generate to actually get there.

TactileGlove II, worn while squeezing the bottle and twisting the cap, tracks hand force across both actions together, not cap torque in isolation.

For patients who struggle to open their own medication, that gap between torque spec and grip demand can be the difference between taking a dose on time and not opening the bottle at all.

Flagging designs that ask too much of the hand, before launch, needs real hand-force data next to the torque spec, for the users who need the extra force most, not instead of it.

Testing child-resistant packaging and want the hand-force side of it, especially for patients with reduced grip strength? Get in touch.

More on TactileGlove II in the comments.

TactileGlove II by PPS deliver accurate hand pressure mapping with 65 sensors. Measure grip force, hand motion, and ergonomic performance.

12/08/2026

Take a wafer-cleaning spray in a semiconductor fab. The nozzle's datasheet says nothing about what actually lands on the wafer.

Spray force for a nozzle like this is usually specified from the datasheet or an average flow rate. Neither describes what happens at the point of impact, where the spray delivers force to the wafer surface it's meant to clean or coat.

Spray Pressure Sensor reads pressure at that surface through the transient impact itself, even at the very low pressures this kind of cleaning process produces.

The shape and peak of the impact, not the average delivery rate, decides whether the spray cleans or coats evenly across the wafer. Flow-rate specs were never built to show that.

Comparing nozzle designs on impact force and coverage at the wafer, rather than on flow measured well upstream of it, is what changes a process brief.

Characterising a spray nozzle's force delivery onto a flat target? Get in touch. We'll talk through what Spray Sensor would show for your process.

More on Spray Pressure Sensor in the comments.

10/08/2026

How Do You Validate a Sensor-Free Diagnostic? With a Sensor.

Capillary refill time (CRT), how fast skin regains its colour after compression, is a frontline shock indicator in emergency and paediatric medicine. The catch: it's still judged by eye, and results shift with how hard the examiner presses and how they read the colour change.

A team at 千葉大学 Chiba University, led by Chiho Miyazawa and Toshiya Nakaguchi, set out to strip that inconsistency out entirely: reading CRT from a smartphone camera alone, with compression force inferred from skin colour change and no physical force sensor in the finished app.

Proving that was possible meant first knowing, precisely, how much force was really being applied during testing. That's where our SingleTact CSU8-10N came in. Mounted on the test rig, it logged calibrated compression force from 1–7N, giving the researchers the ground truth needed to check their colour-based force estimate and Pulse Presence Detection Index against reality.

Great to see this level of rigour behind a diagnostic tool built for widespread, low-cost use.

Full citation: Miyazawa, C.; Shinozaki, M.; Miwa, Y.; Karasawa, S.; Nakada, T.; Nomura, Y.; Nakaguchi, T. "Smartphone-Based Quantitative Measurement of Capillary Refill Time." Instruments 2026, 10(1), 15.

07/08/2026

🏎️ From CFD to the track with Aristotle Racing Team

Ahead of this season’s Formula Student competitions, Aristotle Racing Team (ART) mounted AeroStrip on both the pressure and suction sides of their front wing.

The aim was simple: compare real-world pressure measurements from the wing with their CFD models and use that data to support aerodynamic development.

Their verdict?

“We extracted really good data which I hope will help us both in the design event but also in the development of our Team.”

Aristotle Racing Team (ART) went on to achieve some impressive results this season, including 3rd place in Design at Formula Student Czech Republic and 2nd overall in the Combustion class at Formula Student Austria.

But the work doesn’t stop with the competition season.

Post-season testing continues into September, with more AeroStrip runs planned as the team gathers further data to help refine and validate the design of next year’s car.

Proud to see AeroStrip on the front wing of car #12 and even better to know the data is being put to work.

Follow on Instagram to see how their testing develops.

05/08/2026

What happens at the grip before release?

For an archer, small differences in how the bow is held and the string is drawn may influence what happens when the arrow leaves the bow.

But finger loading on the string and pressure against the bow grip are difficult to quantify through observation alone. Much of the feedback available to coaches comes from technique, feel and the resulting shot.

That’s where tactile sensing could add another layer of data.
FingerTPS II sensors on the drawing fingers could capture how load is distributed between the fingers, while a strip-shaped DigiTact sensor at the bow grip could measure pressure at the hand–riser interface.

Using localized sensors rather than a full sensing glove also reduces the amount of material introduced to the archer’s normal grip and release technique.

The resulting data could help identify differences in finger loading, grip pressure and consistency from shot to shot, thus giving coaches something measurable to compare alongside technique and target results.

For individual athletes, that could mean testing whether a technique adjustment actually changes contact. Across a squad, it could provide a consistent way to compare patterns between archers.

Coaching professional archers and interested in measuring what happens at these contact points? Get in touch.

More on FingerTPS II and DigiTact in the comments.

03/08/2026

The difference between securely holding a glass object and applying too much pressure can be a narrow operating window.

Grip force on a parallel-jaw gripper is often estimated from motor current or measured further back at the actuator. That tells the control system how hard the gripper is being driven, but not what is happening where the fingers actually contact the glass.

RoboTact puts tactile sensing directly on the gripper fingers, measuring the magnitude and distribution of contact pressure at the glass surface.

For glass and other fragile objects, that contact information matters.

Changes in geometry, position and surface condition can change how pressure is distributed across the fingertips, even at the same actuator setting. Using this pressure data as feedback gives the control system direct information from the contact surface.

Grip can then be adjusted to the object being handled rather than relying on one fixed setting.

Tuning grip control for fragile objects?

Get in touch. We'll talk through what RoboTact shows at your gripper's fingertips.

More on RoboTact in the comments.

29/07/2026

From a Measured Pinch to a Virtual Illusion: SingleTact's Role in KAIST's CHI 2026 Haptics Study

KAIST's Graduate School of Culture Technology has developed finger tendon vibration (FTV), a technique that creates the illusion of finger movement in virtual reality, without any device physically moving the finger.

To make the illusion work, researchers Kun-Woo Song, Youngrae Kim, and Sang Ho Yoon needed precise, real-time knowledge of how hard participants were pinching.

Our SingleTact S15-4.5N sensor, built into a small handheld cube, measured that pinch force at 100Hz, giving the team the ground-truth data needed to trigger the vibration at exactly the right moment and force level.

Thank you to the KAIST team for putting SingleTact to work in such a creative application of tactile sensing.

Read the full paper: "Finger Tendon Vibration: Finger Movement Illusions for Immersive Virtual Object Interaction," ACM CHI 2026, Barcelona.

https://doi.org/10.1145/3772318.3790557

27/07/2026

Picture a smartwatch. The case is a rigid housing, the band is the strap, and the edge that presses hardest is the corner of the case, right where it digs in after a run or a night of sleep tracking.

Wearable comfort testing typically centres one sensor under the case, reading well within what's taken as a comfortable range. That single point can look fine while the corner of the same case spikes well past it.

A sensor centred only under the watch face has no way to register a boundary effect it isn't sitting on, and it says nothing about what the strap itself is doing when tightened.

PPS Wrist Sensor, built with integrated Conformable TactArrays, wraps around the wrist, displaying pressure from the case and strap together, so the corner reading, the centre reading and the strap contact come from the same pass rather than separate tests.

Case radius and strap tension can be tuned against real data to improve the design of your wearable.

If you would like a demo or to learn more, get in touch with our engineers.

More on the Wrist Sensor in the comments.

24/07/2026

Our newest technical sponsorship just landed in the Southern Hemisphere.

We're proud to announce our fourth technical sponsorship of the season: UCM - University of Canterbury Motorsport, the Formula SAE team from the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, back-to-back FSAE Australasia champions in 2023 and 2025.

UC Motorsport run one of the most technically advanced platforms we've supported: a carbon-fibre monocoque paired with four-wheel drive. Their season runs on the Southern Hemisphere calendar, building toward FSAE Australasia and Formula Student China later this year, and AeroStrip will be on-car throughout, capturing real surface pressure data as their new car comes together.

Same goal as every team we sponsor, on a completely different clock. We're excited to see what the data shows.