Ability Hand

PSYONIC's Ability Hand is unusual in this catalogue because it began life as a medical prosthesis: it launched at the AOPA congress in September 2019 and is FDA-registered, yet the same six-motor hand is now sold as a robot end-effector with an open API.

Six brushless motors sit inside the palm and drive six degrees of freedom across five fingers and an opposable thumb; fingers close in 0.2 s, with angular speeds of 462 degrees per second for the fingers and 1,848 degrees per second for the thumb. Thirty force-sensing resistors, six per finger, plus six encoders give it touch feedback.

The large version weighs 470 g and measures 186 mm long by 85 mm wide; the small version is 440 g and 180 mm. The maker quotes 78 N grip force, 8 N pinch, 17 N key grip and an axial load rating of 45.4 kg (27.2 kg at the thumb), with IP64 sealing and a 6 to 12 V supply. Control runs over I2C, BLE, UART or RS-485 with Python, C++ and ROS 2 libraries at up to 1 kHz.

Listed partners are Universal Robots e-Series arms and the Manus Metaglove Pro for teleoperation. Price on request from Knox Labs; compare the far heavier research hand Shadow Dexterous Hand.