How Robot Hands Are Evolving to Do What Ours Can

The New York Times has published a front page article featuring research being done in the EECS department.  “How Robot Hands Are
Evolving to Do What Ours Can” details how robotic hands could once only do what vast teams of engineers programmed them to do but–thanks to research being done at places like Berkeley–can now learn more complex tasks on their own.  The article breaks tasks down into 5 categories, 4 of which are illustrated by work being done in Prof. Ken Goldberg’s AUTOLAB:  gripping, picking, bed-making, and pushing.    Although these tasks are limited, the machine learning methods that drive these systems point to continued progress in the years to come.