This prototype robotic hand from German robotics company Festo is called the ExoHand and is pretty amazing when you realize what it is capable of doing.

One of the problems with robotic hands is being able to give it natural human movement and control. ExoHand can simulate an almost perfect range of human finger movement due to Festo’s use of eight double-acting pneumatic actuators on each of ExoHand’s fingers.

This control leads to the second problem facing things like this – not crushing or destroying the thing the hand is holding or manipulating, which in the case of ExoHand would be extremely easy to do.

Festo surmounted this problem by enabling the ExoHand to provide haptic feedback to the person operating the hand. This can be done because the ExoHand is actually two parts – the robot arm and the glove with the super sensitive actuators, which you will be able to see in the video below.

The ExoHand is still in the prototype stage with no word as to when we might see something like this on the market, or how much it will cost.

via DVICE