F-TAC robotic hand enables human-like grasp

This development from researchers at Peking University, the Beijing Institute for General Artificial Intelligence, PKU–Wuhan Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and Queen Mary University of London is claimed to represent ‘a significant leap forward’ in robotic intelligence and its ability to interact with dynamic real-world environments. The work is detailed in Nature Machine Intelligence. 

Progress has been made in mimicking human hand kinematics and control algorithms, but robotic systems have struggled to match human capabilities in dynamic settings, primarily due to inadequate tactile feedback. The F-TAC Hand addresses this limitation with 0.1mm spatial resolution for its tactile sensors. 

"The massive spatial resolution combined with the enormous coverage are truly novel and were not possible previously," said Professor Kaspar Althoefer, director of the Centre of Excellence Advanced Robotics at Queen Mary University of London. "Furthermore, the advanced perception algorithms significantly improve on existing approaches to better interpret the interaction with the environment, allowing for a superior understanding of the grasped object and its crucial parameters."