On October 27, Xiaomi Technology disclosed the results of its bionic dexterous hand technology exploration: taking the flexible manufacturing scenario of the Xiaomi automobile factory as the design starting point, it presents the latest technical thinking on high-degree-of-freedom bionic dexterous hands.
Xiaomi stated that its robotics team conducted complete data collection and analysis verification based on 1827 standard operating procedures (SOPs) at the automobile factory. Simulation ablation analysis based on real operational data shows that in the 17–21 degree-of-freedom range, the average stable grasping success rate of the bionic dexterous hand improved by 15%–38% compared with the 6–15 degree-of-freedom range, with 21 degrees of freedom delivering the greatest improvement in both factory operation coverage and grasping success rate. In this scenario, when the degrees of freedom are further increased to 23 or above, the improvement in grasping capability slows down markedly, and the marginal benefit of stacking degrees of freedom declines.
Based on the above conclusions, Xiaomi designed an all-new 21-degree-of-freedom bionic dexterous hand, which adopts a hybrid drive and tendon-tension control scheme to achieve precise grasping force control and improved reliability and maintainability, while also systematically optimizing the heat dissipation system and full-palm tactile sensing.
Chen Duan, director of the Digital Economy Integration and Innovative Development Center at the Central University of Finance and Economics and deputy director of the Intelligent Products and Industry Working Committee of the China Association for Artificial Intelligence, pointed out that Xiaomi this time took the factory's real operational scenarios as the design starting point, and this "scenario-defined product" R&D paradigm is a more solid moat than hardware specifications. "The tactile, force-position, and assembly timing data collected on the shop floor are scarce scenario-based assets, which can both be used to train the dexterous hand's manipulation policies and continuously feed back into Xiaomi's entire AI system, enhancing cross-scenario transfer capability."
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