How Does the Mechanical Structure of a Dexterous Hand Drive Embodied Intelligence

Abstract

Robotic dexterous hands, as the primary end-effectors through which embodied agents interact with the physical world, directly determine grasp stability, manipulation accuracy, environmental adaptability, and human–robot interaction safety. Research on dexterous hand mechanical structures has expanded rapidly and become increasingly interdisciplinary, so conventional narrative reviews can no longer capture its knowledge base, research drivers, and the evolution of hotspots. A systematic framework that combines bibliometric quantification with mechanism-oriented synthesis is therefore needed. This study presents a bibliometric review of dexterous hand mechanical structures based on Web of Science Core Collection publications from 2016 to 2025, combining bibliometric statistics, collaboration-network analysis, keyword co-occurrence, cluster analysis, and trend synthesis to reveal the field’s research landscape, intellectual structure, and technological evolution. Publications increased steadily, rising from 64 in 2016 to 252 in 2025, with marked acceleration after 2022. China leads in publication volume, whereas the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom show strong citation impact and international collaboration. Core journals concentrate on robotics, mechatronics, sensing, soft robotics, and rehabilitation engineering, and keyword evolution shows a shift from prosthetic hands and basic mechanism design toward compliant structures, soft actuation, tactile perception, and dexterous manipulation. Based on keyword clustering, three principal research streams are identified: body configuration and degree-of-freedom (DoF) evolution, drive and transmission structure design, and soft/compliant structure expansion. The central challenge of dexterous hand design is no longer the accumulation of DoFs but the coordinated optimization of DoF allocation, actuation mapping, contact stability, and compliant adaptation under strict constraints of space, energy, and reliability. Tendon-driven, internally integrated, and underactuated architectures emphasize lightweight dexterity, precision control, and adaptive grasping, respectively, while soft continuum, rigid–soft hybrid, and variable-stiffness structures are reshaping dexterous hands from rigid execution mechanisms into physically intelligent interaction systems. Overall, the field has entered a stage of interdisciplinary system integration, with its core mission shifting from building complex mechanical hands to constructing perceptive, adaptive, and controllable end-effectors. Future work should strengthen task-oriented structural optimization, hybrid actuation, rigid–soft coupling, integrated flexible sensing and closed-loop control, and unified performance evaluation, accelerating the transition from laboratory prototypes to standardized assessment and large-scale deployment.

Keywords

Embodied intelligence / Dexterous hand / Mechanical structure / Bibliometric analysis / Tendon-driven actuation / Underactuated mechanism / Soft and compliant structure

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