Universal and cheap mechanical arm from iRobot

As part of the Autonomous Robotic Manipulation (ARM) program from the DARPA research agency, iRobot, with the help of scientists from Harvard and Yale, designed a universal mechanical arm with three fingers. The accuracy of the hand movements is so high that it can even insert a key into the lock and turn it, and then open the door.

The mechanical arm is very reliable: fingers hold a 23 kg weight, but they can also lift a piece of paper from the floor. Pattern recognition and positioning is done using the Kinect computer system. The hand is very versatile. The video below shows that she can take a massive hand drill and drill a hole exactly in the specified location.

In the future, these manipulators can be used for home robots and on the conveyor. The iRobot company promises that in batches of a thousand pieces the cost of a mechanical hand will be no more than $ 3000. This is much lower than the current cost of this technology - about $ 50 thousand.
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Such a hand is very useful in the household, it can be programmed for almost any action: from cooking a dish according to a recipe to making furniture.