Latest / The Robotics Podcast with Fexingo: Autonomous Systems, Industrial Robots, and Hardware
Why Robot Arms Cant Handle a Zipper
Episode 55 of The Robotics Podcast tackles a surprisingly hard problem: why industrial robot arms still can't zip up a jacket. Lucas and Luna dig into the mechanics of a zipper — the asymmetry of forces, the need for millimeter-precision alignment, and the delicate tug required to engage the slider without jamming. They discuss a recent 2025 paper from MIT's CSAIL lab that attempted to teach a robot arm to zip a duffel bag, achieving only 40 percent success after 500 training episodes. The hosts compare this to the human hand's ability to adjust grip in real time. The…
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