Toyota's Humanoid Robot Embraces Objects with a Bubble-like Grasp

When we think about robotic manipulation, the default is usually to think about grippers—about robots using manipulators (like fingers or other end effectors) to interact with objects. For most humans, though, interacting with objects can be a lot more complicated, and we use whatever body parts are convenient to help us deal with objects that are large or heavy or awkward.This somewhat constrained definition of robotic manipulation isn’t robotics’ fault, really. The word “manipulation” itself comes from the Latin for getting handsy with stuff, so there’s a millennium or two’s-worth of hand-related inertia behind the term. The Los Altos, Cal......

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