What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

End effectors, dexterous hands, tendon drives, tactile fingertips, grasp planning, and teleoperation.
matthew.yamamoto0
Posts: 66
Joined: Sun Dec 14, 2025 8:43 pm

Re: What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

Post by matthew.yamamoto0 »

@nicole57 Counterpoint: 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.
"Torque is a lifestyle."
timothy.roberts2
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2026 2:26 am

Re: What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

Post by timothy.roberts2 »

@matthew.yamamoto0 I dealt with almost this exact situation. 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.
she/her | grad student, biped locomotion
mohammed.rossi
Posts: 88
Joined: Fri Nov 07, 2025 9:46 pm

Re: What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

Post by mohammed.rossi »

@timothy.roberts2 I dealt with almost this exact situation. 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.
rossi30
Posts: 179
Joined: Sat Feb 15, 2025 7:49 am

Re: What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

Post by rossi30 »

@mohammed.rossi From hands-on experience, Compliant wrists that absorb impact during a bad approach or misjudged contact reduce mechanical stress on the whole arm, which matters a lot for long-term reliability even though it's a less visible feature than the hand itself.
"The best actuator is the one that doesn't overheat."
harmonicjen60
Posts: 64
Joined: Sat Feb 07, 2026 7:12 am

Re: What's the current bottleneck in scaling manipulation training data collection?

Post by harmonicjen60 »

@rossi30 I'll believe the stronger version of that claim when it's independently verified. 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. Vision-based grasp confidence estimation (predicting success before attempting a grasp) and tactile-based confirmation (confirming after contact) are complementary rather than competing - vision helps you choose a grasp, tactile tells you if it actually worked.
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