Abstract: In some embodiments, an apparatus for performing reactive positioning of a robot gripper includes one or more fingers disposed on an end-effector of the robot, a signal processing circuit, a memory storing instructions, and a processor. Each of the one or more fingers includes a transducer configured to generate vibrational energy based on an input signal, and convert an acoustic reflection of the vibrational energy from an object into a voltage signal. The signal processing circuit is configured to provide the input signal to each transducer, and perform signal processing on the voltage signal of each transducer resulting in reflection data. The processor is configured to execute the instructions to perform pre-touch proximity detection on the reflection data, perform grasp positioning on the reflection data, perform contact detection from the reflection data, and provide, to the robot, results of the pre-touch proximity detection, the grasp positioning, and the contact detection.