Robotic hand has the dexterity to handle tricky objects with care

A robotic hand can manipulate complicated objects such as toy planes and Rubik’s cubes without dropping them, thanks to a sophisticated computer algorithm.

Haozhi Qi at the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues say their system, called RotateIt, works better than previous ones because it can rotate objects in three axes.

Qi began working on the robotic hand with the long-term goal that it could act as a home assistant for people. “If we have a robot that has the same level of dexterity we have, and it can basically use anything we have, then it can better help …