Humanoid dexterous hand achieves human-like motion with strong grasping force
A fully articulated humanoid dexterous hand with human-level joint structure enabled by linkage-based actuation
Robotics
Summary
Making robot hands that move like real human hands is really hard because of how complicated our joints and muscles are. The authors built a robot hand called Torch-Hand that copies the way human fingers and thumbs move, with 21 joints that work together just like a real hand. Unlike other robot hands that use cables or mixed parts to move, this hand has a smart system of linked parts inside that makes it strong and easy to control. The authors tested how well this hand can grab, hold objects, and do different types of grips, showing it can perform a wide range of tasks.
What this means in practice
- •For robotics engineers: Build robots capable of complex, human-like hand movements with strong grip forces for varied manipulation tasks.
- •For prosthetics designers: Develop advanced prosthetic hands that replicate natural joint structures and improve grasping strength and control.
Authors
Jihao Li, Jianguo Wang, Haotian Guo, Yanzhe Wang, Guodong Lu, Huixu Dong
Abstract
Humanoid dexterous hands are a core component of embodied intelligence, enabling robots to translate high-level intent into rich and adaptive physical interaction. However, existing designs remain constrained by a persistent trade-off among anthropomorphic kinematic complexity, mechanical robustness, load capacity and control simplicity, limiting dexterous manipulation in unstructured environments. Here we present Torch-Hand, a fully articulated humanoid dexterous hand that replicates the joint structure and motion hierarchy of the human hand with 21 degrees of freedom (DOF), comprising a highly articulated five-DOF thumb and four DOF in each of the remaining fingers. The differentiated thumb integrates multi-axis CMC motion to provide broad opposition and flexible contact orientation relative to the four fingers. Unlike tendon-driven or hybrid actuation approaches, Torch-Hand adopts an entirely linkage-based transmission architecture. By integrating screw-linkage actuation, the hand achieves high grasping force and substantial payload capacity while maintaining a compact anthropomorphic form. Its actuation architecture is optimized for control tractability, with all actuators integrated within the palm and arranged in a serial-robot-like configuration that establishes a direct correspondence between motor motion and joint kinematics. This architecture mechanically decouples functional DOF to reduce unintended inter-joint motion propagation, while allowing independently addressable DOF to be actively coordinated into coupled multi-joint motion patterns during complex manipulation. Comprehensive experiments assess reachable workspace, coordinated fingertip trajectories, thumb opposition, 33-grasp taxonomy coverage, grasping force, payload capacity and task-level manipulation. These results establish Torch-Hand as a robust hardware foundation for dexterous embodied manipulation.