Few things in life are cooler than mechanized robots and now those machines have gotten even cooler, thanks to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which has created a robotic hand that outdoes all of its predecessors.
Part of the DARPA Autonomous Robotic Manipulation project, the hand does not represent an effort to simply replicate the human hand. Rather, DARPA went all out in terms of focusing on functionality of the robotic hand itself. The hand is comprised of three fingers that are surprisingly dexterous, having the ability to pick up small objects like screwdrivers and credit cards, and even hold objects with tweezers. DARPA is using the ARM program to invent robotic creations that can perform human tasks without actual human control.
"ARM seeks to enable autonomous manipulation systems to surpass the performance level of remote manipulation systems that are controlled directly by a human operator," DARPA stated on the program's website. "The program will attempt to reach this goal by developing software and hardware that enables robots to autonomously grasp and manipulate objects in unstructured environments, with humans providing only high-level direction."
The robotic hand can pick up larger objects as well, including basketballs and 50-pound weights. It is also tough enough to take a hit from a baseball bat and still function. The true ingenuity of the DARPA robotic hand, however, lies in the softness and compliance of its fingers, which aren't nearly as rigid as those found in traditional robotic hands.
The robotic hand from DARPA was developed by researchers at Harvard, Yale and iRobot. Check out the video below to see the DARPA hand in action.
