On the development of intrinsically-actuated, multisensory dexterous robotic hands
Liu et al. Robomech J
On the development of intrinsically-actuated, multisensory dexterous robotic hands
Hong Liu 0
Dapeng Yang 0
Shaowei Fan 0
Hegao Cai 0
0 State Key Laboratory of Robotics and System, Harbin Institute of Technology , HIT Science Park, No.2 Yikuang Street, Nangang District, P.O. Box 3039, 150080 Harbin , People's Republic of China
Restoring human hand function by mechatronic means is very challenging in robotics research. In this paper, we first make a brief review on the development of dexterous robotic/prosthetic hands, and then detail our design philosophy of several robot hands. We make a concentration on a type of intrinsically-actuated robot hands, wherein the driving, transmission, and control elements are totally embedded in the hand. According to different application scenarios, we develop robot hands in two parallel lines, dexterous robotic hand and anthropomorphic prosthetic hand. In both, the hand's actuation, sensing, and control subsystems are highly integrated and modularized. This feature endows our robot hands with compact appearances, simple integration, and large flexibilities. At last, we give some perspectives on the future development of dexterous hands from the aspects of structure, functionality, and control strategies.
Robotic hand; Prosthetic hand; Intrinsic actuation; Modular design
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Background
As a powerful tool, a large variety of robotic
systems has been applied to help human beings explore
unknown or hazardous areas such as outer space, deep
sea, or contaminated nuclear plants. To achieve
effective explorations, a dexterous end-effector with superior
operation and perception capabilities is an urgent need.
Although traditional grippers can deal with some
simple, fixed tasks (grasping and transferring workpieces),
their low commonality, humble perception and
insufficient flexibility make them hardly competent to complex
operations in unstructured environment. Then,
dexterous robotic hands (DRHs) with multiple degrees of
freedom (DOFs), superior operational and perceptional
capabilities arouse great attentions in the robot society
[1]. Currently, although a large progress has been made,
the DRHs available on the market still cannot compete
to biological hands due to current technical constraints
on actuators, sensors and control means. It is indicated
that, rather than simply imitating the human hand, the
research should switch to fully exploiting the robot
hand’s advantages, while considering specific
requirements (manipulative dexterity, grasp robustness, or
human operability) that allow for successful, fluent, and
dexterous operations [2].
As a branch of robotic hand research, the
anthropomorphic prosthetic hand (APH) is a type of
biomechatronic device used to restore hand motions for
amputees or paralyzed patients. On this topic, great
efforts have been made from both robotics and
biomedical engineering. However, current prosthetic hands still
cannot compete to a human hand in respect of structure,
sensing, and control strategy. Only a few of prosthesis
products can obtain their commercial success. Because
of unintuitive control feelings, lack of sensory
feedback, and poor hand functionality [3], a large portion of
users often refuse to use their prosthesis. After
analyzing human hand’s activities of daily life (ADL’s), a study
reveals that a superior hand prosthesis should have more
controllable functions, faster response/shorter reaction
time, and an intuitive control and feedback strategy [4].
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The advanced prosthetic hand systems are then
characterized by its anthropomorphic appearance, congenital
dexterity (including both mechanical structure and
sensors), and high-level mechatronic integration. As for the
hand’s manipulation capability, it is normally held that
the hand dexterity improves as the number of active
joints increases. However, studies also shows that, as the
number of the active joints increases, the dexterity of a
prosthetic hand may even decrease due to the intensified
control complexity. Therefore, the prosthetic hand design
should consider more comprehensive factors, such as the
compromise between dexterity and controllability, the
suitability and adaptability of the sensory feedback, as
well as essential neural rehabilitation principles [5].
After briefly reviewing some representative
studies, in this paper, we detail our development process of
several DRH and APH prototypes. From a view of
biomechatronics, we also prospect some directions on
the development of advanced robot hands, after fully
acknowledging the chall (...truncated)