One of the key issues in modern robotics is the hand. More precisely, the human hand is such a powerful, versatile, and precise tool that it would be incredibly difficult to create a robotic version that even comes close.
Palo Alto-based robotics company 1X appears to have made great strides here by creating a robotic hand that uses a tendon-like system to operate. The company’s CEO Bernt Bornich posted a video of the NEO robot and its new hand in action, and it’s both impressive and very, very disturbing.
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In this video, the robot is seen performing tasks that are easy for most humans but quite difficult for robots, such as separating grapes from their stems, picking up steel glasses, and screwing in light bulbs.
The video then dives deeper into uncanny valley territory, showing the robot slowly pulling down a man’s jacket and, in one particularly spooky moment, its fingers can curl back.
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Understood. Robots are very dexterous, sometimes exceeding human abilities, but we humans are extremely sensitive to things that are almost, but not quite, human. The robot’s emotionless face doesn’t help much either.
1X explains in a blog post that these new “25 degrees of freedom” hands allow NEOs to “perform virtually any task a human can perform with their hands.” The hands are IP68 waterproof and food safe (meaning NEO can wash your hands just like humans). Also, the hand is not just a blunt instrument for handling things. Instead, it’s also packed with sensors that allow the robot to react to a variety of delicate situations, such as recognizing when something is about to slip and falling, or handling fragile items like origami without breaking them.
Even better, the needle isn’t just a prototype that’s been years in the making. 1X claims it can produce in-house at a scale of 10,000 units per year. It’s not quite global yet, but it’s pretty good considering this whole field of robotics is still in its infancy.
Still, that video will probably stay with us forever.
