Robotic hands are getting their nails done.
Researchers have designed a new three-fingered robotic hand whose digits come with a rigid fingernail on soft material. The design gives the robotic hand the ability to peel fruit, open containers with lids and pick up flat objects, the team posted to arXiv.org February 5. The results offer a glimpse at the kinds of real‑world chores and industrial handling tasks the robot could do.
The tips of most conventional robotic hands have a soft pad on a rigid structure, giving the fingertip a squarish shape. The new robot fingertips have a soft material wrapped around the finger “skeleton,” with a rigid structure