Kinesthetic Teaching

Kinesthetic teaching (also called lead-by-nose or direct guidance) is a method of robot programming where a human physically grasps the robot arm and moves it through the desired motion path while the robot records the trajectory. It requires the robot to be backdrivable (low joint friction and compliance) so the operator can move it with minimal effort. Kinesthetic teaching is intuitive and requires no external hardware, but it is limited to tasks the operator can physically demonstrate, and it produces only proprioceptive data (no wrist camera observations) unless cameras are co-recorded. Gravity compensation mode on torque-controlled robots like the Franka Panda makes kinesthetic teaching practical.