Phantom Force: Injecting Adversarial Tactile Perceptions into Embodied Intelligence via EMI

TL;DR

This paper reveals a vulnerability in tactile sensors of robots, where electromagnetic interference can create false force perceptions, disrupting robot operation and safety.

Contribution

It uncovers a new security weakness in tactile sensors and demonstrates how EMI can manipulate perceived forces in robotic tactile perception.

Findings

EMI can amplify perceived force by over 9 times

EMI can deviate force direction by 65 degrees

Tactile classification models can be paralyzed by EMI perturbations

Abstract

Embodied intelligent robots rely on tactile sensors to interact with the physical world safely. While the security of visual perception systems has been studied (e.g., adversarial samples), the integrity of the tactile sensory channel remains unexplored. This work explores a vulnerability in Hall-effect fingertip sensors, showing their susceptibility to intentional Electromagnetic Interference (EMI). We demonstrate that a targeted signal injection can induce strong ``phantom forces'', amplifying perceived force magnitude by over \textbf{9$\times$} and deviating the inferred force direction by \textbf{65$^\circ$}. Such perturbations can paralyze learning-based tactile classification models, seriously affecting robot movement. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability to coerce a robot hand into crushing fragile objects or dropping dangerous payloads.