GEX: Democratizing Dexterity with Fully-Actuated Dexterous Hand and Exoskeleton Glove

TL;DR

GEX is a low-cost, fully-actuated dexterous manipulation system combining a tri-finger robotic hand and exoskeleton glove, enabling high-fidelity teleoperation and advancing research in embodied AI and robotic skill transfer.

Contribution

The paper presents a fully-actuated, modular, low-cost dexterous manipulation system with independent joint motors, improving kinematic fidelity and accessibility for research and AI applications.

Findings

Achieved high-fidelity teleoperation through full actuation and kinematic retargeting.

Demonstrated ultra-low manufacturing costs with 3D-printed modular components.

Provided a practical platform for data collection in dexterous manipulation research.

Abstract

This paper introduces GEX, an innovative low-cost dexterous manipulation system that combines the GX11 tri-finger anthropomorphic hand (11 DoF) with the EX12 tri-finger exoskeleton glove (12 DoF), forming a closed-loop teleoperation framework through kinematic retargeting for high-fidelity control. Both components employ modular 3D-printed finger designs, achieving ultra-low manufacturing costs while maintaining full actuation capabilities. Departing from conventional tendon-driven or underactuated approaches, our electromechanical system integrates independent joint motors across all 23 DoF, ensuring complete state observability and accurate kinematic modeling. This full-actuation architecture enables precise bidirectional kinematic calculations, substantially enhancing kinematic retargeting fidelity between the exoskeleton and robotic hand. The proposed system bridges the cost-performance gap in dexterous manipulation research, providing an accessible platform for acquiring high-quality demonstration data to advance embodied AI and dexterous robotic skill transfer learning.