Sanctuary AI Demonstrates Zero-Shot In-Hand Manipulation on Hydraulic Hand
Sanctuary AI has once again demonstrated its industry-leading approach to training dexterous manipulation policies for its advanced hydraulic hands. In their latest video, their proprietary hydraulic hand autonomously manipulates a lettered cube, continuously reorienting it to match a specified goal (displayed in the bottom-left corner of the video).
The system successfully achieves the target orientation ten consecutive times without dropping the cube, highlighting robust in-hand manipulation capabilities. The manipulation takes place entirely at the fingertips without the support of the palm, requiring the hand to simultaneously and stably grasp the object, while making progress towards the orientation goal. Such capabilities form the foundation for precise insertion, tool use, and other real world dexterous tasks.
Why this Demonstration Matters
Zero-Shot Transfer from Simulation to Reality
This result showcases a successful instance of zero-shot transfer: a policy trained entirely in simulation performs seamlessly in the real world. This level of transfer fidelity indicates that the simulation environment accurately captures real-world dynamics while producing robust policies.
Overcoming the Challenges of Simulating Dexterous Hands
Simulating anthropomorphic hands remains a significant challenge due to their complexity, contact dynamics, and high degrees of freedom. The success of this transfer highlights Sanctuary AI’s ability to build highly realistic training environments.
Solving the Challenge of In-Hand Manipulation
In-hand manipulation itself is a notoriously difficult problem in robotics. The ability to repeatedly reorient a cube without failure underscores both the effectiveness of the learned policy and the capability of the underlying hardware.
A Clear, but Demanding, Objective
The goal of this experiment was straightforward but demanding: demonstrate that a simulation-trained policy can reliably transfer to the real world and repeatedly achieve a target object orientation.
Hardware that Enables Human-Level Dexterity
What distinguishes Sanctuary AI’s proprietary robotic hands is their high number of active degrees of freedom, enabling finger abduction and sophisticated in-hand manipulation: capabilities not found in commercial robotic hands.
Sanctuary AI’s use of hydraulic actuation provides superior strength, speed, and control. Combined with compact hydraulic valves, this advancement offers a promising path toward achieving human-level dexterity for industrial work applications.
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About Sanctuary AI
Founded in 2018, Sanctuary AI is an award-winning general purpose robotics and physical AI company based in Vancouver, Canada, widely known for “Phoenix,” its general purpose robot unveiled in 2022. Sanctuary AI is focused on creating dexterous intelligence for autonomous labor to help address the labor challenges facing many organizations today. The commanding IP portfolio of Sanctuary AI–ranked third globally–along with their proprietary dexterous hand technology, uniquely positions the company as a leader in the field.
Sanctuary AI's growing list of customers and investors represents a wide variety of industries across Canada, the US, Japan and other countries around the world.
