Our hand is now catching baseballs. Open loop control is working way better than expected. More soon.

Obligatory Raptor glow up photo

Damn this is sexy af

that is some clean tendon routing wow

Low friction throughout the tendon path is what allows us to accurately perceive at the motor what's going on at the fingertip. Super valuable. And will pay huge dividends for tendon reliability.

Great work. Looking forward to the release.

@realnavida 👀

This looks like the future

One of the coolest video I have watched this week

Also the Jacobian is false

False? 😂

@chris_j_paxton

My motor-control architecture may help with that broader problem. (Proprioception) It’s with patent counsel now, so I’m keeping the mechanism private until filing — but I’d be happy to discuss once it’s on file.

We got it but I’m curious. Come back and share once its patented.

Absolutely!

neat

@foundation_robo very impressive! now let’s get a catchers mitt on it and catch some fastballs

this is with open loop control!? damn

this was sick to see in person

impressive!

Sensorless foc. Using shunts to measure back emf to manage position? Or are the motors still encoded

They’re encoded on the motor side. We’ve also integrated joint position encoders, which are necessary for fine manipulation (sub-degree accuracy) when the tendons are loaded, just not on this prototype. A good open loop state estimator is a great fallback option in case something malfunctions, but there’s no reason to make manipulation more complicated than it already is. You need electronics in the finger anyway for tactile sensing.

Let us know once it learns to insert a urinary catheter.

That’s your kink huh?

very cool but whats the emphasis on open loop control about?

It’s hard in tendon driven hands to get a good representation of the joint position from motor position, because of friction in the tendon path. Good open loop control is good to fall back on if position sensing fails

wow.. great job

Super cool dude

Wow, great work, guys!👍

Why must you blur the actuation? 😂 rotary? Linear?

Rotaries. It’s not about the actuation, more so tendon routing. We’ve done some pretty interesting work there, beyond the scope of the video. So we blurred

Hand-eye coordination is one of the toughest challenges in robotics. Impressive progress!

I love the metal visible on your arms.

that's wild. are you logging any contact or just pose + timing for the hand controller?

We are logging motor position and tendon tension (through motor torque), which gives us a coarse sense of contact. But we also have tactile (just not on this prototype) for much finer contact sensing.

Nicely explained 👌

OUR HAND IS CATCHING BASEBALLS ⚾🔥 Open loop control working better than expected... That’s huge. Robotics hitting that "oh wait it actually works" moment. Can’t wait for the next update 👀 More soon 👀👀 Want a tech-breakdown reply or a more hype/viral version for X?

Open loop control catching baseballs already that progress is wild

What do you think of this homemade robotic hand project?

It looks great. If you’re looking for a job in SF dm me

Thank you, I sent you a DM.