HN

Comments (9)

• ACCount39
  It's impressive that something this simple can do this much. But those funky types of actuators live and die by transfer learning now.If a robot AI can figure out how to operate them with very little sim and teleop data, and learn to take advantage of their strengths while maintaining good performance on tasks learned from UMI datasets, teleop data or human headcam videos? Allowing the same "robot mind" to work with different actuators?Then I would expect those to have a decent niche - sitting between the classic two finger UMI gripper and a humanoid hand. Not a drop-in replacement for a human hand, but still more dexterity per hand without sacrificing all of the ruggedness and mechanical simplicity.If transfer learning for different actuator types doesn't work so well? I expect the field to collapse to a binary of "UMI gripper or humanoid hand", with nearly no in-between.
• chuckledog
  Reminds me a bit of the TARS robot from Interstellar. It was portrayed as a highly capable robot with limited articulation. (CASE too) https://interstellarfilm.fandom.com/wiki/Robot
• Menu

  Animats
  It works best on problems which are strongly Cartesian. The chopsticks demo shows the limitations of this. The gripper can pick up two chopsticks, but it can't do much with them, because it can't rotate them to bring them together at the points. But it seems to be good for lab equipment with simple geometry.Also, where are the motors? Inside the gripper, or at the other end of cables?
• octoberfranklin
  One of the challenging parts of imitating human hands is that our hands sense through the same surface which deforms as we bend our fingers. We don't have good robotic devices that can do that.This sidesteps the problem: the surface that contacts the object is flat and never bends, so you can apply a huge variety of very detailed grid sensors to it.The "rolling between the fingers" trick is ultimately what eliminates the need for deformation.
• SCAQTony
  ...or AI assisted robotic surguries
• perennialreport
  [flagged]
• IndiaInfraNotes
  [dead]