ETH Zurich researchers unveil robot hand that walks on its fingers

The work, detailed in a pre-print paper and accompanying videos released by the Soft Robotics Lab at ETH Zurich, presents a robotic hand that moves using its fingers, drawing comparisons to the autonomous hand featured in The Addams Family. Amirhossein Kazemipour, a doctoral candidate affiliated with the Soft Robotics Lab, highlighted the uniqueness of the hand's capacity to move without external assistance. He explained in a video from the university that achieving locomotion in a robotic hand presents considerable difficulty. He elaborated that because the fingers are not uniform, the device must master the coordination of all its components while maintaining equilibrium.

The team employed machine learning to instruct the robot in walking. Rather than manually coding every conceivable motion, they allowed the robot to rehearse walking within a digital simulation, enabling it to learn the movements most effective for fulfilling its objectives. Kazemipour offered a broader perspective, stating, "The bigger question isn't 'How can we make a hand walk,' it's 'How can we make robots more adaptable so that they can find new ways to use their bodies and interact with the world?'"

Furthermore, the research group provided footage demonstrating the hand's proficiency across various scenarios, including navigating diverse surfaces, recovering from tumbles, manipulating objects, and even operating a computer keyboard. Robert Katzschmann, an assistant professor at ETH Zurich, commented on the demonstration, asserting, "It might look a bit spooky, but I think there is actually a pretty meaningful lesson from this. We can have robots made for different purposes." He added that while a large robot might suit one environment, "a small hand can do into a completely different space -- maybe a much more confined, disaster space."