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This robot arm can detach its hand to grab things

The robotic equivalent of the Addams Family’s Thing.

Researchers from the École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland have developed an articulated hand that can extend the reach of a robotic arm by detaching and crawling away on its own to grab things. Due to their strength and speed, robotic arms are typically permanently attached to floors or other structures for added stability, which limits their reach. To develop one that could do that and crawl around on its own like the Addams Family’s Thing, the researchers generated and refined a basic design using a genetic algorithm (which relies on biological tricks like natural selection and evolution) and the MuJoCo physics simulator to test the practicality of iterations.

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