Long-time Slashdot reader [1]fahrbot-bot writes:

> Researchers have developed a robotic hand that can not only skitter about on its fingertips, it can also bend its fingers backward, connect and [2]disconnect from a robotic arm , and pick up and carry one or more objects at a time.

This [3]article in Science News includes footage of the robotic arm reattaching itself to the skittering robot hand, which can also hold objects against both sides of its palm simultaneously, and "can even unscrew the cap off a mustard bottle while holding the bottle in place."

> With its unusual agility, it could navigate and retrieve objects in spaces too confined for human hands. When attached to the mechanical arm, the robotic hand could pick up objects much like a human hand. The bot pinched a ball between two fingers, wrapped four fingers around a metal rod and held a flat disc between fingers and palm.

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> But the bot isn't constrained by human anatomy... When the robot was separated from the arm, it was most stable walking on four or five fingers and using one or two fingers for grabbing and carrying things, the team found. In one set of trials with both bots, the hand detached from the robotic arm and used its fingers as legs to skitter over to a wooden block. Once there, it picked up the block with one finger and carried it back to the arm.

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> The crawling bot could one day aid in industrial inspections of pipes and equipment too small for a human or larger robot to access, says Xiao Gao, a roboticist now at Wuhan University in China. It might retrieve objects in a warehouse or navigate confined spaces in disaster response efforts.



[1] https://slashdot.org/~fahrbot-bot

[2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-025-67675-8

[3] https://www.sciencenews.org/article/detached-hand-robot-fingertips-ai