Meta is developing highly sensitive robot fingers and hands, which the company says will advance AI robots’ abilities to “understand and model the physical world.”
Mark Zuckerberg’s tech behemoth announced the development of Digit 360, described as a “tactile fingertip with human-level multimodal sensing capabilities.” The device has around 18 sensing features and an on-device AI chip helping it digitize touch signals plus changes in its surroundings.
Meta is working with sensor firm GelSight and South Korean robotics company Wonik Robotics on the Digit 360 and other sensor-based projects. The Digit 360 will not be available commercially, but is set to become available to researchers sometime in 2025.
Meta claimed that the Digit 360 “significantly surpasses previous sensors, detecting miniature changes in spatial details, and captures forces as small as 1 millinewton.”
The company also said it was working on a robotic hand that will be the next generation of Wonik Robotics’ Allegro Hand device (pictured below). Like the Digit 360, the Allegro Hand has tactile sensors. The new version will have control boards designed to encode data from the device’s sensors and will also be available sometime in 2025.
While Meta’s sensor-based hand and finger devices are likely to remain in the confines of robotics and AI research for a while, if they are successful, then future generations of them may make their way to consumer markets.
Recently, Matt McMullen, founder of the RealDoll sex robot brand, spoke about the technological limitations of current sex robots, suggesting that most are simply robotic heads placed on love dolls. Sex robots with perceptive tactile fingers and hands would be a huge advancement in the sector, albeit probably not an area Zuckerberg has marked out for his research projects quite yet.
Some tactile hand and glove products are available on the computer, VR, and gaming markets but tend to be designed to deliver touch sensations to the wearer rather than to detect the world around them.
Meta did, however, say that the company’s investment in robotic hands and fingers was part of an endeavor to make robots with advanced machine intelligence (AMI): a state of intelligence, reasoning, and ability that would put them on a par with human intelligence.
The company said its Fundamental AI Research (FAIR) team, which is charged with developing the robot hands, was working to make “embodied AI agents… that can perceive and interact with their surroundings as well as coexist safely with humans, providing assistance in both physical and virtual realms.”
Meta is also reportedly working on what is expected to be the company’s lightest-ever mixed reality headset. The ultra-lightweight headset is expected to be the first device in a new headset range for the company.
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