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Cheap Four-fingered Robot Hand Edges Closer To Human Dexterity
ananyo writes "A robot that can reproduce the dexterity of the human hand remains a dream of the bioengineering profession. One new approach to achieving this goal avoids trying to replicate the intricacy of the bones, joints and ligaments that produce our most basic gestures. A Sandia National Laboratories research team has adopted just such a strategy by designing a modular, plastic proto-hand whose electronics system is largely made from parts found in cell phones. The Sandia Hand can still perform with a high level of finesse for a robot, and is even capable of replacing the batteries in a small flashlight. It is expected to cost about $10,000, a fraction of the $250,000 price tag for a state-of-the-art robot hand today. The Sandia Hand's fingers are modular and affixed to the hand frame via magnets. This gives the researchers the flexibility to design interchangeable appendages tipped with screwdrivers, flashlights, cameras and other tools. The fingers are also designed to detach automatically to avoid damage if the hand hits a wall or other solid object too hard. The researchers say the hand can even be manipulated to retrieve and reattach a fallen finger. The Hand's current incarnation has only four fingers, including the equivalent of an opposable thumb. In the video with the article, the Sandia Hand demonstrates a number of capabilities, including, perhaps most impressively, dropping a AA battery into a flashlight."
Do this with a friend: place your phone on your open palm. Let your friend repeatedly hit your hand from below, not too hard, but enough to make the phone jump 1-2 cm. You probably won't have any troubles preventing the phone from dropping on the floor.
Now take two or three pens, stick them between the fingers of your clenched fist and make sure they are somewhat parallel. Place your phone on them and let your friend hit the sticks from below. You probably don't want to do that, as your phone would land on the floor pretty soon. Using sticks that better approximate your hand, or even better, a display dummy hand, won't help much.
It's not replicating the mechanical arrangement of your joints, but doing something useful with it. The instantaneous sensory feedback your hand gives you about it's own position and the probable position of the phone (pressure, slight air movement, etc), a good deal of which isn't exactly conscious, is quite hard for us to replicate today (with the resources most robotics teams have). Computers still struggle with the fuzzy matching your hand-eye coordination provides to your muscles in order to move in the right direction.
Add to that the visual tracking problem you mentioned, and it turns into quite a feat.