Wearable Robot Adds Two Fingers To Your Hand

rtoz writes: Researchers at MIT have developed a robot that enhances the grasping motion of the human hand. This wrist-wearable robot adds two extra fingers that respond to movements in the wearer's hand. The robotic fingers are on either side of the hand — one outside the thumb, and the other outside the little finger. A control algorithm enables it to move in sync with the wearer's fingers to grasp objects of various shapes and sizes. With the assistance of these extra fingers, the user can grasp objects that are usually too difficult to pick up and manipulate with a single hand.

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Re:The Gripping Hand?

[drinkypoo]

I see that the kids at MIT have read their Niven.

They should probably have read their Shirow, instead. To wit, it makes much more sense to add more arms than to do anything else. We already have two arms which are good at doing fine work. Adding more fingers to them will only make them more cumbersome. Instead, you add more arms to perform gross tasks, like holding things up for a long time, carrying or moving heavy things, and so on. These arms could be programmable to continue doing whatever you were doing, whether it be static, dynamic, or include aspects of both. For example, clamping two items together, operating a pump, or holding a camera steady, respectively.