A Japanese company named ITK has announced that it’s working on manufacturing “sensitive” hands for robots which are suitable for touching humans or handling fragile objects – a problem that’s been quite a challenge for roboticists to solve. Called the Handroid, it is said to be one of the most advanced robot hands created. It features five fully movable fingers that can be moved like fingers on a regular human hand.
Since the Handroid can mimic the operator’s movements, all users have to do is move their fingers like how they want the robot hand to move. Since the Handroid is extremely versatile in this sense, it can be used for purposes where it is normally too dangerous to use a real human hand (i.e. picking up dangerous substances, reaching into dangerous nooks and crannies etc). ITK has plans to sell the hand for about $6,500 each when it hits the market in about two year’s time. Watch the promo video that features music dramatic enough to scare technophobes away: