Latest / The Robotics Podcast with Fexingo: Autonomous Systems, Industrial Robots, and Hardware
Why Robot Hands Still Can't Handle a Coffee Cup
You grab a ceramic mug by the handle without thinking. A robot arm? That simple act requires millimeter-precision, real-time force feedback, and a grasp that adapts as hot liquid shifts the center of mass mid-lift. In this episode, Lucas and Luna walk through a single lab test from a 2025 IEEE paper out of MIT's CSAIL lab: a Franka Emika Panda arm trying to pick up a full, handleless coffee cup. They break down why the task fails — the three distinct failure modes — and what it tells us about the gap between industrial robot grippers and the human hand. Along the way, they touch on the…
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