Human hands were always treated as the pinnacle of biological dexterity, but the truth is less comfortable, you are going to try to reach something under a piece of furniture, the body needs to contort, the wrist suffers, the simple task becomes a mechanical problem, it was exactly that limit that researchers from the EPFL in Switzerland decided to question.

Instead of copying the human hand, they did something more radical, surpassing it, the team led by Aude Billard developed a symmetrical, reversible and modular robotic hand, capable of operating with up to six identical fingers, no special thumb, no hierarchy between fingers, anyone can take on the role of opposition forming stable pincers in multiple ways and more.

This hand does not depend entirely on an arm, when necessary it detaches and crawls like a mechanical spider, the robotic hand manages to move on its own, cross surfaces, go around obstacles and grab objects out of the reach of the traditional robotic arm.

It manipulates while moving, something that researchers call locomotor manipulation, this concept changes radically, the hand can hold objects in the palm, on the back and on both sides, it can carry several items at the same time while moving, with five fingers it replicates practically all known human grips.

With more fingers it goes further, tasks that would require two human hands can be carried out by a single robotic unit, the applications are immense, robberies and humans will be able to use them, although this hand is not anthropomorphic, researchers remember that the human brain is surprisingly adaptable.

Previous studies show that people can integrate extra robotic fingers into the body schema, that is, capabilities beyond humans are not only possible, they can be learned.