Sanctuary AI shows new dexterity with in-hand manipulation skills

By Mike Oitzman | December 19, 2024

Sanctuary AI posted a video demonstrating new capabilities to perform in-hand object manipulation. The video (watch above) shows the company’s 21-degree-of-freedom (DOF) dexterous robotic hand manipulating a die and other objects with its fingers.

The hand uses miniaturized hydraulic valves rather than servos or cable-based tendons. Sanctuary said this method of hydraulic actuation offers an order of magnitude higher power density. However, it added that hydraulics can be more finicky and require more maintenance than electric-powered control systems.

“Demonstrating in-hand manipulation with a scalable and reliable system is a key milestone towards demonstrating the breadth and viability of capable general-purpose robots. Dexterous capability is directly proportional to the size of the addressable market for general-purpose humanoid robots,” said James Wells, CEO and chief commercial officer at Sanctuary AI. “Our ambition is to build a reliable system with human-level dexterity. We have also recently achieved a milestone of testing our hydraulic valve actuators over 2 billion cycles without any signs of leakage or degradation.”

OpenAI famously showed in late 2019 its ability to solve a Rubik’s cube via in-hand manipulation with a single robotic hand. OpenAI shut down its robotics group in 2021, but the relaunched its robotics efforts in May 2024.

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The company continues to train its general-purpose robot, Phoenix, which uses its control architecture called Carbon. The enriched behavioral data from this new level of dexterity provides Carbon with deeper insights into how to interact with our world. Sanctuary’s dexterous robotic hands are designed in a modular format, enabling future partnerships and integrations with both non-humanoid and humanoid general-purpose robots.

The company received additional funding in July 2024, bringing its total investment to $140 million. Sanctuary AI has begun testing its Phoenix humanoid, but has not announced any sales of the solution to date. Manipulation has been the primary technological investment for the Phoenix robot, and the company has not announced plans to leverage bipedal motion yet, leaving the door open for a variety of methods for the robot to maneuver around a facility, including bipedal and wheeled bases.

New leadership

The company is under a new leader now. Wells stepped in as CEO to replace founder Geordie Rose who recently left the company to pursue quantum computing. Rose founded a new company called Snowdrop Quantum. Rose announced the launch of the company in a LinkedIn post in September 2023. Wells held the role of chief commercial officer for four years before Rose’s departure.

The Robot Report reached out to Sanctuary AI and ROSE for comment about the leadership change but had not heard back at press time.