Preface
With the opening of the new era of quality productivity, humanoid robots, as one of the most disruptive and cutting-edge industries, are showing their unlimited potential and challenges.
As the culmination of the cross-integration of cutting-edge technologies such as deep bionics, flexible perception, microelectromechanical systems, and high-performance materials, the dexterous hand is regarded by the industry as a key breakthrough in the transformation of intelligent robot technology, and it is also the key to the landing of the humanoid robot industry.
The dexterous hand of the humanoid robot is currently the most human-like manipulator, and it is a necessary medium for the embodied robot to interact with the environment. So what is the current development of domestic dexterous hands? What are the representative companies and products? Let's take a look.
Timing robots
Intime Robot is the first enterprise in China to realize the commercial mass production of dexterous hands, and it is also the first enterprise to reduce the price of dexterous hands to the level of 10,000 yuan, and its products include humanoid five-finger dexterous hand RH56BFX, RH56DFX and FTP series. Among them, the FTP series industrial-grade haptic perception humanoid five-finger dexterous hand can obtain tactile information of various parts in real time, which helps to optimize finger grasping action and improve operation precision. The output force of the five fingertips reaches 3kg, the gripping force is no different from that of a human hand, and at the same time, the service life is subversively increased to more than one million times, providing long-term reliable support for intelligent robot solutions.
Aoyi Technology
Founded in Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Aoyi Technology's Dexterous Hand ROHand is a highly sensitive end-effector device that simulates human hand movements, consisting of a palm, wrist, five fingers, motors, transmission parts and other parts. The five fingers can move individually, and different movements can be made under external commands. ROHand has a total of 11 motion joints, built-in 6 motor drivers and motor control circuits, and 6 active degrees of freedom. The built-in PID motor control algorithm can easily complete complex actions such as grasping, side pinching, and handshake, and the fingertip bearing capacity is up to 10 kg. ROHAND's dexterous hands are not only suitable for humanoid robots, but can also be applied to prosthetic devices for people with disabilities to help them regain their ability to take care of themselves.
Pacini Perception Technology
As a leader in multi-dimensional haptic and humanoid robotics technology, Pacini Sensing Technology's dexterous hand product, DexH13 GEN2, is the first four-finger bionic dexterous hand on the market that combines multi-dimensional haptics and AI vision dual-modality capabilities. Both hands are equipped with the world's largest number of 1956 professional-grade ITPU multi-dimensional tactile sensors, and bring an astonishing 7824 tactile signal analysis capabilities. In addition to the leading tactile perception, the DexH13 GEN2 integrates an 8 million high-definition AI hand-eye camera, based on an advanced zero-sample pose estimation vision algorithm, and the dexterous hand also leads the industry in excellent AI visual object pose estimation capabilities. DexH13 GEN2 adopts a highly released structure design, which increases the degree of freedom to 13, which can not only realize a single fixed function such as clamping, lifting, welding, etc., but also perfectly simulate various complex actions such as grasping, rotating, and pinching of human hands, and easily adapt to all kinds of refined flexible operations.
Zhiyuan robot
The full range of dexterous hand products includes 12 degrees of freedom five-finger dexterous hand, 6 degrees of freedom five-finger dexterous hand, two-finger gripper and OmniPicker. The high-degree five-finger dexterous hand contains 19 degrees of freedom, including 12 active degrees of freedom, integrating tactile perception and visual tactile perception technology based on the MEMS principle, grasping 5kg with the whole hand and 30kg with self-locking lifting, which is very flexible and accurate in object operation and perception; The 6-degree-of-freedom dexterous hand has a one-handed load of 1kg, with 6 active degrees of freedom and 5 passive degrees of freedom, simulating the morphological size and joint position of the real human hand, and can smoothly express more than 20 commonly used anthropomorphic interactive gestures, bringing you an unprecedented natural interaction experience; The two-finger gripper is specially designed for industrial scenarios and is suitable for Zhiyuan's flexible and intelligent manufacturing general robots.
Dahuan Robot
The dexterous hand DH-5 launched by Dahuan Robot this year imitates the structure of the human hand and adopts a highly integrated design, with 6 active degrees of freedom driven by a micro electric cylinder and 11 degrees of freedom through the connecting rod. In addition, the DH-5 is equipped with a force sensor at the end of the finger, which can provide real-time feedback on the finger gripping force. The overall weight is about 700g, the palm skeleton is made of 7 series aluminum alloy, and the shell is made of engineering plastic, which is lighter.
Fourier
The new generation of dexterous hands, developed by Fourier, has increased the number of one-handed degrees of freedom from 6 to 12 in the original generation, perfectly replicating the shape and size of the human hand, while simulating the natural movement of the human hand to the greatest extent. In addition, the new generation of dexterous hands is also equipped with 6 array tactile sensors and motion control algorithms, which can sense the grip strength in real time, adjust the gripping strategy, and achieve precise force control and grasping of objects of different shapes, materials and weights.
Jun rudder robot
The founding team of Junruo robot comes from the Robotics Research Institute of Harbin Institute of Technology, with many years of experience in the development of space light robotic arms and dexterous hands, the company has gradually grown into a leader in electric servo actuators, the company's third-generation three-finger dexterous hands can cooperate with the vision and intelligent perception capabilities of humanoid robots, and the analysis of grasping strategies can be carried out through the data collected by vision, and control instructions can be automatically issued to achieve automatic grabbing. In the second half of this year, Junruo Robot plans to launch multi-dimensional tactile sensors, which are used on the fingertips and palms of dexterous hands to improve the accuracy of their tactile transmission. In addition, the company will also launch three dexterous hand products equipped with this sensor, among which, the five-finger dexterous hand with 22 degrees of freedom can complete more than 95% of the movements of the human hand.
Tencent Robotics X Lab
Last year, Tencent Robotics X Lab announced the latest robot research progress, showcasing its achievements in the field of dexterous operation for the first time, and launching its self-developed robot dexterity hand TRX-Hand. In terms of athletic capacity, thanks to the innovative patented rigid-flex hybrid drive technology and self-developed high-power density driver, TRX-Hand has the characteristics of high dexterity and high load speed, with 8 independently controllable joints, a weight of only 1.16 kg, a maximum continuous fingertip force of up to 15 N, and a maximum joint speed of no less than 600 degrees per second, which can easily cope with the grasping and operation of objects of different shapes and sizes, and the fingertip design of the flexible drive also effectively improves the impact resistance of the fingers. In terms of perception ability, the dexterous hand is covered with a self-developed array of high-sensitivity flexible tactile sensors on the fingertips, fingertips and palms, and miniature lidar and proximity sensors are installed in the palms, while angle sensors are integrated into each joint to ensure that the dexterous hands can accurately perceive the status information of themselves and objects during grasping and operation.
Conclusion
In addition, domestic companies such as Zhaowei Electromechanical and Siling Robot, as well as scientific research institutions such as the Institute of Automation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Harbin Institute of Technology have also studied the dexterity of humanoid robots.
According to the estimation of market institutions, the current cost of a single high-performance dexterous hand is about 4.5~130,000 yuan, and the price of a single hand is expected to be less than 10,000 yuan after mass production. According to rumors, there are currently companies that have sold dexterous hands at the level of 1,000 yuan. In short, it is the general trend for dexterous hands to develop in the direction of higher degrees of freedom, high perception and low cost improvement, and domestic enterprises are expected to occupy more market share with active investment and price advantages.