When Cornell engineers developed a new type of robot hand that could pick up oddly shaped objects it presented a challenge: It was easy for a human operator to choose the best place to take hold of an object, but an autonomous robot, like the ones we may someday have helping around the home or office, would need a new kind of programming. So they have developed a procedure -- an algorithm -- that allows a robot to learn grasping skills from experience and apply them in new situations.
