Atlas Robot's New Hand May Outperform Human-Like Designs
Making a hand that's capable, reliable, and manufacturable is a very hard problem
By Evan Ackerman, IEEE Spectrum's robotics editor
Three fingers and a thumb with 13 degrees of freedom is what Boston Dynamics says its hand needs to do just about everything.
Image credit: Boston Dynamics
Why This Matters in 2026
As humanoid robots edge closer to commercial deployment in 2026—from warehouse logistics to in-home assistance—the race to build a truly capable robotic hand has become one of the field's defining engineering challenges. Boston Dynamics' latest design for its Atlas robot suggests that mimicking human anatomy may not be the winning strategy after all.
The Core Challenge
Building a robotic hand that is simultaneously capable, reliable, and manufacturable remains an extraordinarily difficult problem. While human hands are marvels of evolutionary engineering, replicating their full dexterity in hardware introduces trade-offs that often undermine practicality.
Boston Dynamics' approach with Atlas—a three-fingered, one-thumb configuration with 13 degrees of freedom—reflects a growing consensus in the robotics community: functional versatility may matter more than anatomical fidelity.
What's Next
As Atlas continues its transition from research platform to production-ready humanoid, the design choices behind its end effector will likely influence how the broader industry thinks about manipulation in the years ahead.
Evan Ackerman is IEEE Spectrum's robotics editor.