Overview
- The peer‑reviewed work, published January 20 in Nature Communications, comes from EPFL researchers including Aude Billard with contributions from Xiao Gao.
- Two physical versions were built with five and six fingers and a roughly 16‑centimeter palm, featuring reversible fingers that grasp from either side and perform tasks such as unscrewing a bottle cap while holding the bottle.
- In detached mode the hand crawls on its fingertips to reach items beyond an arm’s range, collects up to three objects sequentially, maintains its holds, and docks back onto the arm.
- Experiments reproduced 33 human grasp types, secured everyday objects such as a cardboard tube, rubber ball, whiteboard marker, and tin can, and supported loads up to about two kilograms.
- Designs were evolved with a genetic algorithm that optimized finger count, placement, and gait, with researchers pointing to future uses in confined‑space inspection, warehouse retrieval, and disaster‑response access pending further development.