I have been working at Sanctuary AI for a while, and one of the projects that I have had the absolute pleasure of being involved with is what I believe are the world’s best pair of robotic hands.
If you haven’t already seen it, the video below is a good demonstration of the hardware capability from a calibration procedure.
I will not be going into any design specifics other than what is already publicly shared.
I worked primarily on the hardware electronics that actuate all the different joints in the hand. It was a very challenging design process that made us push the limits of what was thought to be possible. It required numerous innovations from several teams to make this happen. Along the way, I learned so much – not just about electrical design but also about mechanical integration, control algorithms, designing reliability, and more.
In a sense, designing electronics for a hand is one of the most complicated challenges. You have some of the tightest size constraints possible meaning you also have issues with power density and cooling and on top of that you have constant joint motion making connections difficult.
The scope of my work and things that I have learned include:
- PCB design for dozens of different dedicated power electronics, signal processing electronics, and adapter boards.
- Flexible Printed Circuit (FPC) design
- Designing for manufacturing (DFM)
- Cable Harness design and drawings
- Board assembly and testing
- Preparing documentation for large scale production
- Inventory management
All in all, I’m happy to have worked with such a great team to deliver an awesome project. This was a great experience and I’m looking forward to more to come at Sanctuary AI.
joey gaffney 