Reversible, detachable robotic hand redefines dexterity

2025 LASA/CREATE/EPFL CC BY SA.

By Celia Luterbacher

With its opposable thumb, numerous joints and gripping skin, human hands are commonly thought about to be the peak of mastery, and lots of robot hands are created in their photo. However having actually been formed by the slow-moving procedure of development, human hands are much from enhanced, with the most significant disadvantages including our solitary, unbalanced thumbs and add-on to arms with restricted movement.

” We can quickly see the constraints of the human hand when trying to get to things beneath furnishings or behind racks, or executing synchronised jobs like holding a container while getting a chip can,” states Aude Billard, head of the Learning Algorithms and Systems Laboratory (LASA) in EPFL’s College of Design. “Also, accessing things placed behind the hand while maintaining the hold stable can be exceptionally difficult, needing unpleasant wrist contortions or body repositioning.”

A group made up of Billard, LASA scientist Xiao Gao, and Kai Junge and Josie Hughes from the Computational Robot Design and Fabrication Lab created a robot hand that gets rid of these obstacles. Their tool, which can sustain approximately 6 the same silicone-tipped fingers, solutions the issue of human crookedness by enabling any kind of mix of fingers to create opposing sets in a thumb-like pinch. Many thanks to its relatively easy to fix layout, the ‘back’ and ‘hand’ of the robot hand are compatible. The hand can also remove from its robot arm and ‘crawl’, spider-like, to understand and bring things past the arm’s reach.

” Our tool dependably and perfectly carries out ‘loco control’– fixed control integrated with independent movement– which our company believe has terrific possible for commercial, solution, and exploratory robotics,” Billard sums up. The study has actually been released in Nature Communications.

Human applications– and past

While the robot hand appears like something from an advanced science fiction, the scientists claim they attracted motivation from nature.

” Lots of microorganisms have actually developed flexible arm or legs that perfectly change in between various performances like understanding and mobility. For instance, the octopus utilizes its versatile arms both to creep throughout the seafloor and open coverings, while in the insect globe, the hoping mantis usage specialized arm or legs for mobility and target capture,” Billard states.

Certainly, the EPFL robotic can creep while preserving a grasp on numerous things, holding them under its ‘hand’, on its ‘back’, or both. With 5 fingers, the tool can reproduce a lot of the typical human understandings. When geared up with greater than 5 fingers, it can solitarily deal with jobs normally needing 2 human hands– such as loosening the cap on a big container or driving a screw right into a block of timber with a screwdriver.

” There is no genuine restriction in the variety of things it can hold; if we require to hold even more things, we merely include even more fingers,” Billard states.

The scientists anticipate applications of their ingenious layout in real-world setups that require density, flexibility, and multi-modal communication. For instance, the modern technology can be made use of to get things in restricted settings or increase the reach of typical commercial arms. And while the recommended robot hand is not itself humanlike, they likewise think maybe adjusted for prosthetic applications.

” The in proportion, relatively easy to fix capability is especially beneficial in circumstances where customers can gain from abilities past regular human feature,” Billard states. “For instance, previous researches with customers of added robot fingers show the mind’s exceptional flexibility to incorporate added appendages, recommending that our non-traditional setup can also offer in specialized settings needing increased control capabilities.”

Recommendation

A detachable crawling robotic hand, Xiao Gao (高霄), Kunpeng Yao (姚坤鹏), Kai Junge, Josie Hughes & Aude Billard, Nat Commun 17, 428 (2026 ).

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