Dexterous hands for humanoid robots

Scalable dexterous hand solutions with Infineon motor control, tactile sensing, zone control, connectivity, and safety support

Overview

As degrees of freedom in dexterous hands increase, engineers must fit more motor control, sensing, and feedback functions into limited hand and finger space. Infineon offers scalable technologies for compact motor control, zone control, tactile sensing, and sensor fusion, helping engineers design robotic hands that are highly integrated, responsive, and ready for advanced manipulation, safe interaction, and real-time control.

Benefits

  • Precise finger control
  • Stable grasping
  • Delicate object handling
  • Compact joint integration
  • Lower system complexity
  • Faster local response
  • Scalable hand designs
  • Real-time touch feedback
  • Safer human interaction

Block diagram

About

Precise motor control for human-like hand movement

Dexterous hands need precise motor control to grasp, rotate, translate, and reposition objects with coordinated finger movement. As degrees of freedom increase, space becomes one of the biggest design constraints. Highly integrated motor drive technologies help minimize PCB area while supporting compact robotic hand architectures.

Together, these technologies help engineers balance performance, PCB area, thermal design, and scalability for dexterous robotic hands with many degrees of freedom.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • MOTIX™ BLDC motor controllers - integrated MCU and driver fuctions for reduced external component and PCB area
  • PSOC™ Control C3 MCUs for compact motor control and multiple motor control
  • XENSIV™ TLI49012 and TLI5012B angle sensors for motor, rotor, and joint position feedback
  • OptiMOS™ power MOSFETs in ultra-compact PQFN 2x2 with low RDS(on) and high switching performance for excellent efficiency in a small footprint
  • Integrated medium-voltage CoolGaN™ Drive concepts that combine power with gate drivers, current sensors, and protection devices for next generation integration and space saving

Scalable zone control for complex robotic hands

A dexterous hand can contain many actuators, sensors, and communication paths. Zone control helps organize this complexity by coordinating motor nodes, tactile sensing, and local feedback through a hand-level controller.

This scalable approach helps engineers connect palm-level control, finger-level motor nodes, and sensing subsystems while keeping the system modular, responsive, easier to expand, and ready for real-time control.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • XMC4800 microcontrollers for EtherCAT-based hand-level coordination
  • AURIX™ microcontrollers for advanced domain controller architectures
  • PSOC™ Control C3 MCUs for local motor control nodes with real-time control
  • Wired connectivity, protection, and power supply products to complete the system

Multi-sense feedback for precise manipulation

Dexterous hands need precise force feedback to apply the right amount of pressure during continuous manipulation. Rich tactile sensing helps robotic hands detect force changes, support stable grasping, and adapt when objects move, slip, or require delicate handling.

Multi-sense architectures can combine proximity detection, contact detection, force estimation, magnetic position sensing, and slip detection in a compact sensing pipeline, helping hands respond to force changes quickly and interact more naturally.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • PSOC™ 4000T with CAPSENSE™ technology for tactile, proximity, and contact sensing
  • XENSIV™ 3D Hall sensors, such as TLE493D, for magnetic tactile concepts with small magnets in deformable fingertip structures
  • XENSIV™ pressure sensors and REAL3™ time-of-flight sensors for richer sensing inputs
  • PSOC™ Edge MCUs for sensor fusion and AI functionality integration

Integrated tools to speed robotic hand development

Infineon’s development ecosystem helps engineers move from concept to prototype with less effort. ModusToolbox™ supports rapid development for PSOC™ applications, including embedded sense, control, wireless, and cloud-connected systems.

For dexterous hands, these tools help accelerate sensing, firmware, and control development while supporting scalable architectures across motor control, tactile sensing, and system control.

Relevant Infineon resources include:

  • ModusToolbox™ Motor Suite for embedded motor control software development
  • CAPSENSE™ configuration and tuning resources for sensing development
  • Evaluation hardware and reference resources for faster prototyping
Motor control development tools
Capacitive sensing development tools

Precise motor control for human-like hand movement

Dexterous hands need precise motor control to grasp, rotate, translate, and reposition objects with coordinated finger movement. As degrees of freedom increase, space becomes one of the biggest design constraints. Highly integrated motor drive technologies help minimize PCB area while supporting compact robotic hand architectures.

Together, these technologies help engineers balance performance, PCB area, thermal design, and scalability for dexterous robotic hands with many degrees of freedom.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • MOTIX™ BLDC motor controllers - integrated MCU and driver fuctions for reduced external component and PCB area
  • PSOC™ Control C3 MCUs for compact motor control and multiple motor control
  • XENSIV™ TLI49012 and TLI5012B angle sensors for motor, rotor, and joint position feedback
  • OptiMOS™ power MOSFETs in ultra-compact PQFN 2x2 with low RDS(on) and high switching performance for excellent efficiency in a small footprint
  • Integrated medium-voltage CoolGaN™ Drive concepts that combine power with gate drivers, current sensors, and protection devices for next generation integration and space saving

Scalable zone control for complex robotic hands

A dexterous hand can contain many actuators, sensors, and communication paths. Zone control helps organize this complexity by coordinating motor nodes, tactile sensing, and local feedback through a hand-level controller.

This scalable approach helps engineers connect palm-level control, finger-level motor nodes, and sensing subsystems while keeping the system modular, responsive, easier to expand, and ready for real-time control.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • XMC4800 microcontrollers for EtherCAT-based hand-level coordination
  • AURIX™ microcontrollers for advanced domain controller architectures
  • PSOC™ Control C3 MCUs for local motor control nodes with real-time control
  • Wired connectivity, protection, and power supply products to complete the system

Multi-sense feedback for precise manipulation

Dexterous hands need precise force feedback to apply the right amount of pressure during continuous manipulation. Rich tactile sensing helps robotic hands detect force changes, support stable grasping, and adapt when objects move, slip, or require delicate handling.

Multi-sense architectures can combine proximity detection, contact detection, force estimation, magnetic position sensing, and slip detection in a compact sensing pipeline, helping hands respond to force changes quickly and interact more naturally.

Relevant Infineon technologies include:

  • PSOC™ 4000T with CAPSENSE™ technology for tactile, proximity, and contact sensing
  • XENSIV™ 3D Hall sensors, such as TLE493D, for magnetic tactile concepts with small magnets in deformable fingertip structures
  • XENSIV™ pressure sensors and REAL3™ time-of-flight sensors for richer sensing inputs
  • PSOC™ Edge MCUs for sensor fusion and AI functionality integration

Integrated tools to speed robotic hand development

Infineon’s development ecosystem helps engineers move from concept to prototype with less effort. ModusToolbox™ supports rapid development for PSOC™ applications, including embedded sense, control, wireless, and cloud-connected systems.

For dexterous hands, these tools help accelerate sensing, firmware, and control development while supporting scalable architectures across motor control, tactile sensing, and system control.

Relevant Infineon resources include:

  • ModusToolbox™ Motor Suite for embedded motor control software development
  • CAPSENSE™ configuration and tuning resources for sensing development
  • Evaluation hardware and reference resources for faster prototyping
Motor control development tools
Capacitive sensing development tools
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