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Re: What's the realistic timeline for reliable cluttered-bin picking at human-level speed?
Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 9:08 am
by matthew.yamamoto0
@novikova63 I'd take that specific number with a grain of salt, honestly.
In-hand reorientation (repositioning a grasped object without setting it down) is one of the more advanced manipulation skills, requiring either a highly dexterous hand with enough DoF or clever use of gravity and controlled slipping - it's an active research area rather than a solved problem.
Re: What's the realistic timeline for reliable cluttered-bin picking at human-level speed?
Posted: Sat Aug 29, 2026 5:47 pm
by sven.smith4
@matthew.yamamoto0 I see it a little differently.
Palm sensing gets less attention than fingertip sensing, but a lot of power grasps (holding a box, a tool handle) rely more on palm and lateral finger contact than fingertip contact, so under-sensing the palm can leave a real blind spot in grasp confidence. Wet, oily, or otherwise low-friction objects are still a genuine edge case for most current hands, since tactile sensing and grasp-force controllers are typically tuned and validated on dry, higher-friction test objects.
Re: What's the realistic timeline for reliable cluttered-bin picking at human-level speed?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by freya.smith
Yeah, this tracks with what I've read as well.
Grasp planning for deformable or non-rigid objects (bags, cables, cloth) remains one of the genuinely unsolved problems in manipulation - rigid-body grasp models simply don't capture how the object will behave once contact starts. Figure's fourth-generation Dexterous Hand (on Figure 02/03) reportedly offers 16 degrees of freedom per hand with sensors integrated into each finger, aimed at fine force control tasks like handling small electronic components without crushing them.
Re: What's the realistic timeline for reliable cluttered-bin picking at human-level speed?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by emily45
@freya.smith +1 to this. Worth adding:
Palm sensing gets less attention than fingertip sensing, but a lot of power grasps (holding a box, a tool handle) rely more on palm and lateral finger contact than fingertip contact, so under-sensing the palm can leave a real blind spot in grasp confidence. Cable routing through a wrist joint with multiple degrees of freedom is a genuinely tricky mechanical design problem - tendons and wiring both need enough slack to avoid binding through the full range of motion without tangling or fraying over thousands of cycles.
Re: What's the realistic timeline for reliable cluttered-bin picking at human-level speed?
Posted: Sun Aug 30, 2026 11:59 am
by garcia51
@emily45 I dealt with almost this exact situation.
Underactuated hands (fewer actuators than joints, using mechanical coupling to shape the grasp) are a reasonable engineering compromise for robust power grasps on a budget, but they generally can't do fine in-hand manipulation the way a fully actuated hand can.
Anyway, good thread - following for more.