Prensilia's Mia Hand Survives 300,000 Grip Cycles

Prensilia says its Mia hand survived 300,000 grasp cycles at full grip force in company testing, closing in 280 milliseconds. Francesco Clemente, Managing Director of Prensilia, breaks down why fingers fail before motors or gears do, why the company moved from tendon-driven transmissions to rigid linkages, and how a 3-motor hand prices against lower-cost competitors. The company puts its bill of materials at roughly 35% motors and close to 70% mechanical transmission and frames, by its own count. Guest: Francesco Clemente, Managing Director, Prensilia Host: Michelle Sun, Core Matter Full episode notes and transcript: https://corematter.substack.com/p/the-hand-that-wouldnt-quit-inside Core Matter, independent research on the Physical AI stack and supply chain: https://corematter.substack.com Chapters 00:00 Francesco Clemente, Managing Director, Prensilia 02:22 Prosthetics and research customers 04:46 Broken hands and reliability 07:09 Loaded versus unloaded cycle testing 11:59 Failure modes in fingers, gears, and motors 14:19 Motor heating and cooling 16:42 Tendon maintenance and anchoring 21:26 Weight and robotic-arm payload 23:48 Degrees of freedom and actuation 26:14 Underactuation and adaptive grasping 31:01 Motor current, torque, and heat 33:29 Grasp taxonomies and motor count 35:52 Abduction and hand design 38:17 Tactile sensing 40:38 Bill of materials and actuators 45:22 Industrial use cases 50:04 Competitors and grippers 54:42 Manufacturing scale