Move over, humanoids. Robotic body parts step up

If you’re creeped out by disembodied appendages, look away now. Everyone else, welcome to the next phase of the labor market. Roboticists have successfully demonstrated a detached robotic hand that surpasses human dexterity while navigating environments and manipulating objects entirely independent of a central torso or an arm. Catch Skyler Ware’s handy writeup for Science News.

🖐️ Putting the brain in the palm

To optimize their blueprint for a crawling robotic hand, scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne and MIT used machine learning to generate and analyze virtual representations of different robotic traits in combination. To overcome the inherent biological constraints of the human hand (think thumbs, unidirectional bending and fixed reach) they settled on a robotic hand with a detachable wrist and with fingers that can bend backwards and forwards. Their modular five- and six-fingered designs allow any finger pair to function as an opposing grip, enabling efficient grasping from any angle. Most notably, the hand can crawl autonomously, extending its workspace to manipulate and retrieve objects that would otherwise be out of reach.

🦾 Modular manpower: The appendage-as-a-service market

Robotics is embarking on a fundamental shift from humanoid clones to modular, task-specific appendages. This reduces the cost and complexity of automation: why buy a $100,000 bipedal robot to move a box when a $5,000 autonomous hand can crawl over and do it for you? While Tesla’s Optimus and other bipeds grab the headlines, the real muscle lies in modularity. With task-specific componentized robotics, a single application could control a fleet of independent hands, legs or specialized grippers in a warehouse. This lowers the barrier to entry for small-to medium-sized manufacturers who need the precision of a human hand without the spatial footprint of a full-sized robot. An appendage-as-a-service model could allow for 24/7 sorting, assembly and even hazardous waste handling with hardware that is easily replaceable and highly scalable.

🤝 Getting a grip on the future

While the big labs refine the prototypes, these startups are already putting the hand in handiwork:

1. Sanctuary AI: This Canadian company has used a trial-and-error AI training method called reinforcement learning to refine its robot hands, which can perform dexterous tasks like twirling a 12-sided die. Sanctuary AI has raised over $140 million, with significant backing from the Business Development Bank of Canada.
   
2. Apptronik: While famous for their Apollo humanoid robot, the company recently launched a subsidiary, Elevate Robotics, specifically to focus on nonhumanoid industrial automation, with modular robotic systems designed to work alongside humans. Apptronik has secured over $760 million in funding and recently signed a major partnership with Mercedes-Benz.
   
3. Dexterity: This startup focuses on robotic grippers with the ability to grasp, move, place and stack items of various weights and sizes. Dexterity has raised over $290 million with a valuation exceeding $1.4 billion, backed by Lightspeed Venture Partners among others.

In the future of automation, you won’t need a whole body to get a leg up — or the upper hand — on the competitiononey is betting on the labs that can see what everyone else misses.

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