Orientation

Quickstart: Before You Begin

Read this first. The Orca Hand is a 17-DOF dexterous hand that attaches to a robot arm. This page answers the key questions: what arm does it mount on, what tasks is it designed for, how complex is setup, and what you will be able to do when you finish.

Orientation

What Is the Orca Hand For?

The Orca Hand is a dexterous end-effector — it replaces the simple gripper on a robot arm with a 5-fingered hand capable of complex grasps, in-hand manipulation, and whole-hand contact. It is designed for manipulation research where a two-jaw gripper is insufficient.

Its 17 Feetech STS3215 servos communicate over a single 3 Mbps USB serial bus — the same bus used in the SO-101. The orca_core Python SDK connects, calibrates, and commands all 17 joints in under 10 lines of code. No ROS required for basic control.

Primary use cases

  • Dexterous grasping with multiple contact points (pen grasps, cylinder grasps, tool grasps)
  • In-hand manipulation (reorientation, sliding, rolling objects between fingers)
  • Teleoperation with a glove input device (Juqiao Glove or similar)
  • Recording dexterous manipulation datasets for policy training
  • Tactile-guided grasping research using optional fingertip sensors
Arm Compatibility

What Arm Does It Mount On?

The Orca Hand uses a standard ISO 9283 arm flange mount. It is compatible with any arm that exposes this mounting interface.

OpenArm 101

8-DOF CAN-bus arm. The Orca Hand mounts on the end-effector flange. USB serial from the hand connects independently to the host PC.

Recommended

DK1 Bimanual Kit

Dual OpenArm setup. Mount one Orca Hand per arm for full bimanual dexterous manipulation. Two USB serial connections required.

Supported

UR5 / UR10

Universal Robots arms with ISO 9283 flange. Connect Orca Hand USB serial to the UR arm controller PC or an external host.

Supported

Custom / Other Arms

Any arm with the standard 50mm or 63mm ISO 9283 bolt pattern. The hand is electrically independent — power and USB connect directly to the host PC.

Compatible

Electrical independence: The Orca Hand does not draw power from the arm — it has its own 5V USB power. The arm and hand software stacks are independent. You can develop and test the hand without a connected arm using the MuJoCo simulation.

Time Commitment

How Long Does Setup Take?

Complexity level: intermediate. No CAN bus or kernel drivers, but finger assembly and tendon routing require patience.

Assembly
~90m
Finger modules, tendon routing, wrist mount
Software install
~20m
orca_core pip install, USB driver check
Calibration
~30m
Finger zero positions, tendon tension per finger
First grasp test
~20m
Individual finger control, grasp primitives
Arm integration
~30m
Mount hand, route USB, verify combined control
First teleop session
~45m
Glove mapping, grasp recording, episode review

Total first-day time: roughly 4 hours including arm integration. Tendon routing is the step most beginners underestimate — plan 90 minutes for assembly alone.

What You Need

Hardware Checklist

  • ✓
    Orca Hand unit (left or right) 17-DOF hand with 5 finger modules. Available from orcahand.com or as an open-source build from the GitHub repo.
  • ✓
    Robot arm with ISO 9283 flange OpenArm 101, DK1, UR5/10, or any arm with standard mounting bolt pattern. The hand is also functional standalone (mounted to a fixed plate) for finger research.
  • ✓
    USB serial adapter (Feetech STS bus) Same type as the SO-101 — a Feetech serial bus servo controller board. One per hand. Available in the SVRC store →
  • ✓
    5V power supply (4A minimum) 17 STS3215 servos at load draw ~3–4A peak. A powered USB hub with a dedicated 5V supply works for bench testing.
  • ✓
    Host PC (any OS) Python 3.9+ on macOS, Linux, or Windows. The orca_core SDK uses standard USB serial — no OS-specific drivers needed beyond the standard CP2102/CH340.
  • ✓
    Wrist-mount camera (optional) A small USB camera mounted inside the palm or above the hand gives a fingertip-view for data collection. USB endoscope cameras work well for this.
  • ✓
    Juqiao Glove or VR controllers (for teleoperation) Optional — needed for glove-based teleoperation. See Juqiao Glove hub →
End Goal

What You Can Do After the Full Path

✓ Command all 17 finger joints independently via the orca_core Python SDK over USB serial
✓ Execute pre-programmed grasp primitives (power grasp, pinch, tripod, hook, lateral)
✓ Teleoperate the hand via glove input and record synchronized finger-state + camera episodes
✓ Publish dexterous manipulation datasets to HuggingFace Hub in LeRobot format
✓ Run the same control stack in MuJoCo simulation for policy development without hardware
✓ Use ROS2 with the orca_ros2 package for coordinated arm + hand trajectory planning

Ready? Start the Setup Guide.

Assembly and calibration take about 2 hours. The software stack is up in under 20 minutes.

Step 1: Assembly & Setup → Research Guide Official Docs