The MOTIF Hand: A Robotic Hand for Multimodal Observations with Thermal, Inertial, and Force Sensors

Abstract: Advancing dexterous manipulation with multi-fingered robotic hands requires rich sensory capabilities, while existing designs lack onboard thermal and torque sensing. In this work, we propose the MOTIF hand, a novel multimodal and versatile robotic hand that extends the LEAP hand by integrating: (i) dense tactile information across the fingers, (ii) a depth sensor, (iii) a thermal camera, (iv), IMU sensors, and (v) a visual sensor. The MOTIF hand is designed to be relatively low-cost (under 4000 USD) and easily reproducible. We validate our hand design through experiments that leverage its multimodal sensing for two representative tasks. First, we integrate thermal sensing into 3D reconstruction to guide temperature-aware, safe grasping. Second, we show how our hand can distinguish objects with identical appearance but different masses - a capability beyond methods that use vision only.