Video: Engineers develop a robotic hand that can detach, crawl, and reattach

Engineers at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) have developed a novel robotic hand capable of detaching from its arm, crawling independently, grasping multiple objects sequentially, and reattaching to its base. This robotic hand features a fully symmetrical design with four degrees of freedom (DOF) per finger, allowing it to grasp objects flexibly from any direction and use its fingers both for locomotion and manipulation. The hand’s symmetry enables finger pairings that act like dual thumbs, improving crawling efficiency, simplifying multi-object handling, and reducing the complexity of movements compared to traditional robotic or human-like hands. The robotic hand’s design integrates mechanical innovation with algorithmic planning, optimizing finger number, length, placement, and roles to balance grasping performance and crawling speed. Using a genetic algorithm, the team identified configurations that maximize efficiency while considering actuator limits, motor size, and 3D printing constraints. The hand’s reversible fingers allow it to grasp objects from either side without repositioning