“Fingers”, robot version: This hand is capable of identifying objects just by feeling them

It is “Fingers”, the hand of the Addams Locos, but in a robot version. MIT developed a robot hand that is able to identify objects just by feeling them.

Inspired by the real human finger, MIT’s robot hand has sensors placed directly on the pads of its three fingers, which help the central computer determine what it is squeezing.

The sensors use a camera and LED technology to collect visual information about the shape of an object, providing continuous detection at each finger.

The identification accuracy is 85%, according to the researchers.

Sandra Liu, a mechanical engineer and co-author of the study, spoke about it with the MIT Press Department.

“Having soft and rigid elements is very important in any hand, but so is being able to do great detection over a really large area, especially if we want to consider very complicated manipulation tasks like what our bare hands can do,” says Liu. .

“Our goal with this work was to combine all the things that make our human hands so good into a robotic finger that can do tasks that other robotic fingers currently can’t do.”

This is how each finger of the MIT robot hand is made up

Each finger is made up of a rigid 3D-printed endoskeleton, which is placed in a mold and covered with a transparent silicone “skin”.

The sensors used they are the GelGight, being embedded in the upper and middle sections, under the transparent “skin”. They are positioned in such a way that the range of the cameras overlaps slightly, giving the finger continuous detection along its length.

And since everything has a purpose, even the wrinkles in the silicone were important, since they prevented the “skin” from tearing.

The MIT researchers want to create a palm with sensors as the next step, as well as improve the hardware to reduce the amount of silicone wear over time.