Boston Dynamics gives Atlas new 13-DOF directly actuated hands built for sim-to-real RL
ChongZzZhang · x · 2026-10-01
Boston Dynamics unveiled a new generation of hands for its Atlas humanoid: 13 degrees of freedom (up from 7 in GR2), fully directly actuated, built for high-fidelity simulation and sim-to-real RL, and designed from the ground up for dexterous physical work.
The post details the ruthless tradeoffs in hand design — dexterity, strength, ruggedness, cost, repairability, and sensing all compete. The new hand must use tools, survive industrial and logistics realities, minimize cross-embodiment with human demonstration data, simulate cleanly for synthetic data generation, and be mass-manufacturable and repairable at low cost. It complements the new Atlas, which carries a 100lb+ payload and is designed for simple mass manufacturing.
Related event: Boston Dynamics Unveils 13-DOF Dexterous Hand for Atlas(2 posts)→
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