Researchers from Intel have designed a robotic hand which can sense the shape of an object before it interacts with it. The robotic hand is based on electrolocation which means that the tips of the fingers are sending an electrical signal to the objects that will interfere with, and the hand will recognize the object before reaching it.

This technique was inspired by sharks who use electrolocation to detect electric fields better than other animals. According to Joshua Smith, a researcher from Intel, electrolocation is only the beginning as it “only provides coarse data about the shape of objects”.

Although it worked very well, in the future the researchers will try to provide the robots with “Pre Touch” which is the sense with a “longer range than touch but a shorter range than vision”. Pre Touch could be resembled with the sixth sense, but this is up to the researchers to decide.

Check out the video below to see the robotic hand in action.