By Wu Siya

BEIJING, May. 12 (China Economic Net)– What can a robotic hand do?

When such a smart device was first created, simply lifting heavy objects was the only task it could accomplish. Today, it can also handle a series of delicate tasks, including applying eyeshadow, playing the zither or making embroidery. Dexterous hand, as the most sophisticated structure of humanoid robots, has become a new highlight in the field of embodied intelligence.

“Robots are the ‘last mile’ of automation, and dexterous hands are the ‘last centimeter’ of robots,” Professor Sun Fuchun, Tsinghua University, once said.

“Our Linker Hand research version has the world’s highest 42 degrees of freedom (DOF), surpassing the 26 of the world’s leading product Shadow Hand. Each finger could independently have up to 7 DOF, which means it has surpassed human fingers. It is also equipped with an advanced multi-sensor system, including cameras and electronic skin,” said Cao Gang, deputy general manager of Linkerbot (Beijing) Technology, at the Future Industry Conference during the 27th China Beijing International High-tech Expo (CHITEC).

Linker Hand attracts attention at High-tech Expo [Photo/Wu Siya]

“Currently, the global market share of commercial-grade Linker Hand has reached 80%,” Gao added. “In years to come, Linkerbot aims to deploy 1 million humanoid robots equipped with dexterous hands in the real world to collect data. Including but not limited to playing with a Rubik's Cube, putting on makeup are included in our fine motor standardized test scenarios.”

“Our DexH13 GEN2 is the first four-finger bionic dexterous hand in the domestic market that integrates multi-dimensional tactile + AI visual dual-modal capabilities, which can perfectly simulate various complex movements of human hands such as welding, grasping, rotating, and pinching,” said Dr. Xu Jincheng, founder and CEO of PaXini Tech, another leading domestic haptic technology and humanoid robotics company, in his speech.

More than 70% of physical interactions and more than 90% of fine operations rely on human hands. However, due to the bottleneck of tactile sensing technology, robots have serious deficiencies in tactile modality, thus have long been unable to achieve dexterous grasping and fine operations like humans. Therefore, tactile sensors are regarded as the key to the “perceptual awakening” of robots. According to Xu, R&D team will “collect” more human ability perceptions through tactile sensors and even perception units, such as three-dimensional force, torque, to help dexterous hands make further improvements

In 2024, the global market size of dexterous robotic hands has reached approximately USD 1.7 billion (approximately 760,000 units), and is expected to exceed USD 3 billion (approximately 1.41 million units) by 2030, with a compound annual growth rate of approximately 12.7%, all of which showed a growing demand for intelligent and refined robot operations in various industries. And the market size of dexterous hands in China has accounted for about 20% of the global market, which is also expected to exceed 30% by 2030. Companies such as UBTECH, Inspire Robots and Unitree have driven the rapid growth of the local market, as well as the shipment volume of domestic dexterous hands will increase by more than 50% year-on-year.

Dexterous hands showed at the CHITEC [Photo/Wu Siya]

As the application of humanoid robots expands, the market demand for dexterous hands as their key execution components is also rising. From cargo sorting in logistics warehousing, to precision assembly in electronic manufacturing, to daily assistance in home services, the application scenarios of dexterous hands are becoming increasingly rich.