Overview
- ABB Robotics announced the R&D partnership with PSYONIC to mount the PSYONIC Ability Hand on an ABB GoFa collaborative robot to collect human-generated touch and motion datasets for training robotic grip and manipulation.
- The Ability Hand records contact, grip force and finger movement with myoelectric control, pressure sensors and vibration feedback so engineers can capture one-to-one human manipulation data to reproduce on a robot.
- Early demonstrations include a PSYONIC user operating a drill while engineers record movement and force data; the project is in integration and evaluation stages rather than a mass commercial rollout.
- ABB and PSYONIC plan to test use cases across automotive, aerospace, packaging, logistics and life sciences and cite International Federation of Robotics research that advanced gripping can cut engineering time for handling tasks by up to 30 percent.
- PSYONIC says about 300 amputees use the Ability Hand and roughly 90 organizations use it for research, and the company is also working with UC San Diego and the Naval Medical Center on next‑generation nerve- and muscle-connected devices under a U.S. military grant.