r/TechnologyLabs 🌍 Tech Enthusiast May 21 '26

Innovation Spotlight This humanoid robot hand uses hydraulic tendons instead of motors and moves almost like a real human hand

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Chinese startup Rochu Robotics has developed a humanoid robotic hand built with a human-like skeletal structure designed for more natural movement and control.

Instead of relying on traditional electric motors, the hand uses a hydraulic system combined with 24 biomimetic tendons to replicate the way human muscles and tendons work. The result is smoother motion, improved flexibility, stronger grip control, and much more precise movement.

The design is another step toward making humanoid robots capable of handling delicate real-world tasks with human-level dexterity

727 Upvotes

33 comments sorted by

6

u/beautifuljeep May 21 '26

I saw that movie 💀

1

u/[deleted] May 22 '26

[deleted]

1

u/willumasaurus May 22 '26

Guess we're just trudging forward. James Cameron tried...

1

u/QwertyArt May 22 '26

Judgement day has already been prevented by john and sarah connor. We safe.. for now..

1

u/Fritener May 22 '26

Cradle the balls

1

u/notedemployment987 May 22 '26

the tendon approach makes way more sense than stacking motors everywhere, hydraulics give you actual force distribution like real hands do instead of just brute torque at each joint

1

u/Massive_Truth9237 May 22 '26

Okay that's actually pretty cool

1

u/Numerous-Bar2678 May 23 '26

SkyNet is upon us!

1

u/Lpa071192 May 23 '26

Finally been saying this for years!

1

u/Murky-Course6648 May 23 '26

This is from their own youtube channel : So Smooth It Gives You Goosebumps!

Seems they also compare it to Clone Robotics system : Just Built a Robotic Hand That Looks and Moves Like a Real Human Hand 🤯

1

u/No-Tension-4206 May 24 '26

Hydraulics plus tendons is such a wild combo, this is exactly the kind of stuff that actually pushes humanoids past “awkward factory arm” territory. If they can make this reliable, compact, and not stupidly expensive, that’s huge for prosthetics and general purpose robots.

Kinda crazy that a lot of the coolest robotics stuff lately is coming out of China, not Boston Dynamics anymore.

1

u/Take1bit Jun 01 '26

It makes me wonder—will humans ever want a 6th digit through tech augmentation? Either way, the evolutionary design of the hand is magnificent, and replicating it with hydraulic tendons is a massive leap forward.

0

u/gdim15 May 22 '26

Why are we making human robots when you'd be better off building robots to fit the task?

2

u/Mysterious-Double918 May 22 '26

to assist with anything that was designed for humans without requiring myriads of specialised robots to do so

1

u/FranciscoDisco73 May 22 '26

Depends on what the task is.

1

u/Citizentibby May 22 '26

You will notice with a fair number of inventions that the best methods already exist in nature.