This five-fingered robot hand is close to human in functionality

This five-fingered robot hand developed by University of Washington computer science and engineering researchers can learn how to perform dexterous manipulation -- like spinning a tube full of coffee beans -- on its own, rather than having humans program its actions. A University of Washington team of computer scientists and engineers has built what they say is one of the most highly capable five-fingered robot hands in the world. It can perform dexterous manipulation and learn from its own experience without needing humans to direct it. Their work is described in a paper to be presented May 17 at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. "Hand manipulation is one of the hardest problems that roboticists have to solve," said lead author Vikash Kumar, a UW doctoral student in computer science and engineering. "A lot of robots today have pretty capable arms but the hand is as simple as a suction cup or maybe a claw or a gripper."