Robotic Hand Design

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Overview

Robotic hand design asks how a hand’s shape, joints, actuators, materials, and sensors determine what it can grasp and manipulate. Common approaches include tendon-driven and underactuated fingers, linkage mechanisms, compliant soft-rigid structures, and remote actuation; designs increasingly integrate tactile sensing and are co-optimized with control or learning methods. Researchers assess hands through grasp taxonomies, object-manipulation tasks, teleoperation, and emerging standardized dexterity benchmarks. A central tension is whether anthropomorphic complexity is worth its cost: human-like motion can help in some tasks, but task-specific mechanisms may be simpler, while robust performance and fair comparisons remain challenging.

Latest papers

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70 papers6 papers in the last four weeks, down 57% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. EgoThumb: A Vision-Driven Supernumerary Robotic Thumb for Autonomous Grasp and Holding Assistance

    Oct 27, 2026Jianyu Hou, Jiawei Fu, Weikang Wan +3Robotic Hand DesignAssistive Robotics

    Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. · Sudo AI GmbH, 8050 Zurich, Switzerland.

  2. A fully articulated humanoid dexterous hand with human-level joint structure enabled by linkage-based actuation

    Oct 27, 2026Jihao Li, Jianguo Wang, Haotian Guo +3Robotic Hand DesignDexterous Manipulation

    Grasp Lab, School of Mechanical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. · Robotics Institute of Zhejiang University, Ningbo, China.

  3. ORBIT: A Modular Multi-finger Robotic Hand Platform with Rotational Finger Reconfiguration

    Oct 23, 2026Benito Ribadeneira, Siqi Shang, Lillian ChinRobotic Hand DesignRobotic Manipulation

    The University of Texas at Austin, TX, USA

  4. PHD-Hand: A Printable Humanoid Dexterous Hand with Linkage-Driven 3-DOA Digits

    Oct 21, 2026Neel Adwani, Muhaiminul Islam Akash, Saffia Ouali +2Robotic Hand DesignRobotic Manipulation

    Electrical and Computer Engineering, New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) · Union County Magnet High School, USA

  5. Tactile In-Hand Object Rotation: A Comparative Study of Hand Morphology in Simulation and Hardware

    Oct 19, 2026Wenhao He, Max Yang, Chenghua Lu +3In-Hand ManipulationRobotic Hand Design

    Department of Engineering Mathematics and Bristol Robotics Laboratory, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UB, U.K.

  6. PACT: Posture-Aligned Co-Design Technique for Hand Configuration and Retargeting in Multi-Finger Imitation Learning

    Oct 13, 2026Koyo Sasazaki, Satoshi Funabashi, Pranav Ponnivalavan +3Robotic Hand DesignRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    All authors are with Waseda University, Okubo 3-4-1, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan

  7. Design of a Fully Actuated 4-DOF Robotic Finger With Joint-Specific Hybrid Remote Actuation

    Oct 7, 2026Hyojae Kang, Hyun-mok Jung, Joonho Lee +4Robotic Hand DesignTendon-Driven Actuation

    Advanced Robotics Research Center, Korea Institute of Machinery & Materials (KIMM) · Mechanical Engineering, University of Science & Technology (UST)

  8. Design and Validation of an Antagonistic Tendon-Driven Dexterous Robotic Hand with Bidirectional Operation

    Sep 28, 2026Chunghyeon Lee, Hyukjun Kwon, Sungeon Kim +2Robotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul 04107, South Korea

  9. Evolving Dexterous Robots from Scratch

    Sep 27, 2026Zihan Guo, Shuzhe Zhang, Muhan Li +2Robotic ManipulationEvolutionary Robotics

    Northwestern University

  10. Tactile Sensing Array for Multi-Phalanx Sensing in Humanoid Hands

    Sep 24, 2026Neel Adwani, Muhaiminul Islam Akash, Rituja Bhattacharya +1Tactile SensingTactile Sensing for Robotic Manipulation

    New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Electrical and Computer Engineering

  11. Anthropomimetic Soft Robotic Forearm with Independently Articulated Carpal Bones Enabling Human-Like Adaptive Stiffness Modulability

    Sep 24, 2026Yoshinobu Obata, Yinlai Jiang, Hiroshi Yokoi +1Robotic Hand DesignRobotics

    Department of Mechanical and Intelligent Systems Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan · Center for Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan

  12. A Quasi-Direct-Drive Underactuated Asymmetric Hand for Dexterous and Efficient Grasping and Manipulation

    Sep 23, 2026Benjamin Davis, Chase Kidder, Hannah S. StuartRobotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Embodied Dexterity Group, Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA · General Motors, Warren, MI, USA

  13. The Cartesian Hand: In-Hand Manipulation with All-Linear Fingers

    Sep 22, 2026Boxi Xia, Bokuan Li, Ryan Shin +3Robotic Hand DesignDexterous Manipulation

    Duke University

  14. A Reconfigurable Dual-Opposition Architecture for Single-Hand Assembly and Manipulation

    Sep 19, 2026William Su, Yunosuke Nakamura, Yixiao Wang +6Robotic Hand DesignIn-Hand Manipulation

    Aerospace Engineering Program, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore 117575.

  15. A Direct Rigid Transmission 2-DoF Wrist Extension for Tendon-Driven Hand

    Sep 19, 2026Yujie Pang, Sadman Sakib, Mohammad Abdullah Al FaruqueRobotic ManipulationRobotic Hand Design

    The authors are with the Nhu Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California-Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA. · Contributed during participation in the UCInspire program at UCI

  16. DITTO: Dexterous Interface for Transparent TeleOperation

    Sep 16, 2026Joaquin Palacios, Katelyn Lee, Cheng Zhang +2Robot TeleoperationRobotic Data Collection

    Dept. of Mechanical Engineering, Columbia University · Dept. of Computer Science, Columbia University · Dept. of Computer Science, Stanford University

  17. Robust Underwater Grasping of Sloped Objects with a Waterproof Passive Adaptive Gripper

    Sep 11, 2026Jooyoung Hong, Daewon Hong, Joohyung KimRobotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    KIMLAB (Kinetic Intelligent Machine LAB), University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, IL 61801, USA

  18. Quasi-static analysis of passive stability in a novel underactuated multi-finger hand

    Sep 10, 2026Léonie Plancoulaine, Sylvain Guégan, Franck Plestan +1Robotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    LS2N - équipe RoMas, LS2N · Nantes Université, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, CNRS, LS2N, UMR 6004, Nantes, France · IRCCyN +2

  19. Benchmarking Dexterity of Multifingered Robot Hands: A Review and Perspective

    Sep 4, 2026Anthony Shilati, Anunth Ramaswami, Luke Batteas +16Robot Manipulation BenchmarksDexterous Manipulation

    Center for Robotics and Biosystems, Northwestern Univ., Evanston, IL, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M Univ., College Station, TX, USA · Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Carnegie Mellon Univ., Pittsburgh, PA, USA +1

  20. Morphology and actuation as inductive biases in robotic hand manipulation

    Sep 4, 2026Zalán Tari, Eszter Birtalan, Péter Polcz +1RoboticsRobotic Hand Design

    Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Faculty of Information Technology and Bionics, Budapest, Hungary

  21. ARTiS: An Adaptive Robotic Gripper for Enhanced Tool Manipulation in Disassembly Applications

    Sep 3, 2026Roman Mykhailyshyn, Yukiyasu Domae, Kensuke HaradaRobotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Embodied AI Research Team, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), Tokyo 135-0064, Japan · Graduate School of Engineering Science, The University of Osaka, Osaka 560-8531, Japan

  22. A Compact Robotic Finger with 2-DoF MCP Joint Embedding DoF-Selective Passive Continuously Variable Transmission for Wide Force-Speed Operating Range

    Sep 1, 2026JaeHyung Jang, Jee-Hwan RyuRobotic Hand Design

    Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Daejeon 34141, South Korea.

  23. Aero Hand Open: A Simulation-Ready Tendon-Driven Hand for Dexterous Manipulation Learning

    Aug 28, 2026Nan Wang, Mohit Yadav, Jonathan Wulff +5Robotic Hand DesignRobotics Simulation

    Chestnut Robotics

  24. Active Surface-Driven Reconfigurable Gripper: Robust Grasping and Sequential Manipulation of Thin Objects

    Aug 27, 2026Ziyi Zheng, Keqi Zhu, Hao Wu +2Robotic GraspingRobotic Hand Design

    Grasp Lab, Zhejiang University

  25. A Tendon-Driven Five-Fingered Hand with Distributed Tactile Perception for Dexterous Manipulation

    Aug 26, 2026Huayang Chen, Longhui QinRobotic Hand DesignDexterous Manipulation

    School of Mechanical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China

  26. Development of a Voice-Controlled Tendon-Driven Bionic Hand

    Aug 25, 2026Urja Kohli, Shagata Chanda, Kritika Gandhi +3Robotic Hand DesignAssistive Robotics

    Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, Indira Gandhi Delhi Technical University for Women, Delhi, India

  27. H-PAC Hand: Control-Oriented Modeling and Tendon-Elasticity Compensation for an Underactuated Robotic Hand

    Aug 17, 2026Teng Yan, Jiongxu Chen, Teng Wang +5Robotic Hand DesignTendon-Driven Actuation

    The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, China · Southeast University, Nanjing, China

  28. Ultra-Low-Impedance Robotic Gripper for High-Bandwidth and Transparent Physical Interaction

    Aug 10, 2026Joon Lee, Ari Choi, Seokhwan JeongRobotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Sogang University, Seoul, South Korea

  29. A Mixed-Stiffness Anthropomimetic Fingertip Broadens the Operating Range for Coin Grasping

    Aug 8, 2026Kaigen Go, Yinlai Jiang, Hiroshi Yokoi +1Robotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan · Center for Neuroscience and Biomedical Engineering, The University of Electro-Communications, Tokyo, Japan

  30. A Monolithic Hand with Asymmetric Origami Bending and Dual-chamber Actuators

    Jul 24, 2026Nan Huang, Yuming Zhu, Zicong Zhang +5Robotic Hand DesignRobotic Grasping

    Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, Guangdong, 518000, China. · University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104, USA. · Sino-German College of Intelligent Manufacturing, Shenzhen Technology University, Pingshan, China.