Sony has filed a US patent software for a robotic hand that includes a human-like opposable thumb, offering one other intriguing indication of the electronics bigâs persevering with analysis into humanoid and embodied robotics.
The appliance, US 2026/0225261 A1, was revealed by the US Patent and Trademark Office on August 6 and describes a robotic hand designed to breed among the actions that make the human thumb so essential for manipulating objects.
The submitting was dropped at the eye of Robotics & Automation Information by patent intelligence publication Patentlyze, which has revealed an evaluation of the applying.
Though the patent focuses on the hand mechanism, drawings accompanying the applying present significantly greater than an remoted hand. One depicts two views of an entire robotic with a head, torso, two articulated arms and a wheeled cell base.
There isn’t a indication at this stage that Sony intends to commercialize the robotic depicted within the submitting, and patent drawings shouldn’t be interpreted as product bulletins. However the software is especially fascinating given Sonyâs lengthy â and generally ignored â historical past in robotics.
Getting the thumb proper
On the heart of the patent is among the hardest mechanical issues in robotic manipulation: reproducing the bizarre vary of movement of the human thumb.
Patentlyze describes Sonyâs strategy as a design that breaks the motion into three separate rotation factors.
Two rotation shafts enable the finger part to flex, whereas a 3rd supplies the sideways motion that permits the thumb to maneuver throughout the palm and oppose the fingers.
Patentlyze notes that when the hand is totally open, the three axes occupy the identical airplane, offering the mechanism with a clearly outlined impartial place.
The publication describes the third joint as follows: âThis specialised joint controls how the robotic thumb swivels and opposes the remainder of the hand.â
The apparently small distinction issues. Many robotic grippers are extraordinarily efficient at repetitive industrial duties however lack the adaptability of a human hand, which might transfer quickly between pinching tiny objects, gripping instruments and wrapping its fingers round irregular shapes.
A mechanically succesful opposable thumb might due to this fact have functions nicely past humanoids, together with service robots, remotely operated machines and different programs anticipated to make use of instruments and objects designed for people.
Sony has been right here earlier than
For anybody who remembers the early years of humanoid robotics, the sight of a Sony patent containing a humanoid-style machine might also look surprisingly acquainted.
Greater than 20 years in the past, Sony developed QRIO, a small bipedal humanoid initially referred to as the Sony Dream Robotic.
QRIO might stroll, dance, work together with folks and acknowledge voices and faces. In 2003, Sony demonstrated an upgraded model able to operating and leaping, which the corporate described on the time because the worldâs first operating autonomous humanoid robotic with its management and energy programs onboard.
Sony stopped growing QRIO amid a wider restructuring of its robotics companies within the mid-2000s. The corporate says it has no plans to carry the robotic itself again.
Its robotics analysis, nonetheless, by no means completely disappeared.
Sony has stated that its AI and robotics R&D continued by way of successive reorganizations even after it withdrew from the robotics enterprise. The corporate subsequently returned to business robotics with a brand new technology of Aibo and has continued analysis into locomotion, manipulation, autonomous machines and AI.
Extra lately, Sony researchers have investigated autonomous cell robots able to combining wheeled and legged locomotion, whereas Sony Interactive Leisure researchers have labored on instructing bipedal robots to maneuver utilizing human movement knowledge.
And final month, Sony joined Honda, SoftBank, NEC and different Japanese organizations in a mission growing a multimodal basis mannequin meant to help AI-enabled robots and bodily AI.
Palms develop into the subsequent battleground
That wider context makes the timing of Sonyâs hand patent notable.
Humanoid robotics has superior dramatically for the reason that days of QRIO and Hondaâs ASIMO. Merely getting a robotic to stay upright and stroll convincingly is now not the defining technical achievement it as soon as was.
Consideration is more and more shifting in the direction of manipulation â giving robots the power to carry out helpful work as soon as they arrive at their vacation spot.
That requires palms able to reliably gripping hundreds of objects with completely different sizes, weights, shapes and floor properties.
Patentlyze argues that Sonyâs submitting addresses that downside on the mechanical degree somewhat than making an attempt to unravel every thing by way of AI and software program, describing it as âa centered mechanical engineering patent, not a flashy AI submittingâ.
Whether or not the mechanism in the end seems in a Sony robotic stays unknown. Corporations routinely patent applied sciences that by no means develop into business merchandise, and the drawings present no proof that Sony is getting ready a brand new QRIO successor.
However at a time when among the worldâs largest know-how and automotive firms are as soon as once more investing closely in humanoids and bodily AI, the submitting reveals that Sony continues to be serious about one of many subjectâs most troublesome issues.
Twenty years after QRIO disappeared, Sonyâs subsequent humanoid could or might not be ready within the wings. Its engineers, nonetheless, clearly havenât stopped serious about how robots ought to transfer â proper right down to the thumb.
