Glossary · Hardware
Dexterous hand
In brief
A dexterous hand is an end-effector designed to approximate human hand capability — typically 5 fingers, 11+ degrees of freedom, opposable thumb, and the ability to perform precision grasps as well as power grasps. Dexterous hands are the most expensive single subsystem on most humanoids.
Manufacturing a dexterous hand is hard: many tiny actuators or tendons, fine sensors, durable surfaces, all packaged into a human-scale envelope. A high-end dexterous hand can cost as much as the entire rest of a research robot. Most humanoid platforms ship with simpler 3-finger or 5-finger hands and offer dexterous hands as an upgrade option.
The distinction matters a lot for use case fit: warehouse pick-and-place is happy with a parallel gripper; service tasks (folding laundry, using tools) genuinely require dexterity.
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