Think about what you do with your hands when you’re home at night pushing buttons on your TV’s remote control or at a restaurant using all kinds of cutlery and glassware. These skills are all based on touch, while you’re watching a TV program or choosing something from the menu. Our hands and fingers are incredibly skilled mechanisms and highly sensitive to boot.
Robotics researchers have long been trying to create “true” dexterity in robot hands, but the goal has been frustratingly elusive. Robot grippers and suction cups can pick and place items, but more dexterous tasks such as assembly, insertion, reorientation, and packaging have remained in the realm of human manipulation. However, spurred by advances in both sensing technology and machine-learning techniques to process the sensed data, the field of robotic manipulation is changing very rapidly.