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Beyond Dexterity: Why Contact May Define the Next Era of Robotics

This article is brought to you by AGILINK.Throughout the exhibition hall at the 2026 IEEE International Conference on Robotics (ICRA), in Vienna, one demonstration seemed to attract a disproportionate amount of attention.Two robotic hands were making a balloon dog. Slowly and deliberately, the robot twisted a long balloon into loops, bends, and joints without popping it. Visitors stopped, watched, and often returned with colleagues to watch again. AGILINK’s balloon dog demonstration draws a crowd at ICRA 2026.AGILINKAt first glance, the demonstration appeared almost playful. Among roboticists, however, balloon twisting is widely recognized as an unusually difficult manipulation task.A balloon is lightweight, highly deformable, slippery, and extremely sensitive to force. Every twist changes its geometry and internal pressure, turning a seemingly simple activity into a continuously changing physical interaction problem.Humans navigate those changes almost intuitively. While making a

Beyond Dexterity: Why Contact May Define the Next Era of Robotics
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Nikos De Vries

2d ago
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