PHYBOT's 23-DoF robot hand passes lab tests, not yet in use

At PHYBOT's booth in Guangzhou, a robot hand played rock-paper-scissors with visitors, moving its joints in sequence to show that its fingers could coordinate. The demonstration was the first public showing of the PhyHand series, a set of fully direct-drive anthropomorphic dexterous hands, shown at the 140th China Import and Export Fair, better known as the Canton Fair, which opened in Guangzhou on October 15.

The PhyHand has 23 active degrees of freedom, the independent movements its joints can make, and the whole hand weighs 750 grams. PHYBOT says its design pairs direct drive with dual encoders, the sensors that report a joint's position. The company argues this keeps the hand from losing steps during high-frequency operation, removes slack during fine adjustments and keeps force output stable. Rival hands are arriving with similar ambitions: WanNa Robotics' NOVA21 has 21 degrees of freedom, and Unitree's Dex5-S has 22.

The limits are as clear as the ambition. PHYBOT says the hand has completed full laboratory validation, which means it has passed tests in a controlled setting, but it has not yet shown fine grasping, which the company says is still being developed. Multi-platform integration testing and refinement in real settings also remain ahead. The company has not released grip force figures, sensing details, pricing or a release date, so the hand's performance outside the lab is still unknown.

What changes, for now, is mainly for robot builders. A light, interchangeable hand that the maker says fits different robot platforms could save them from designing a grip from scratch, but that promise depends on the integration tests PHYBOT has not yet published. PHYBOT's pitch is that its robots should do real work rather than stand on display, and the company admits the hand has not reached that stage. Whether it does, and when, is a question the fair did not answer.