On the development of intrinsically-actuated, multisensory dexterous robotic hands

ROBOMECH Journal, Feb 2016

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.

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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 - 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]. © 2016 Liu et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. 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)


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Hong Liu, Dapeng Yang, Shaowei Fan, Hegao Cai. On the development of intrinsically-actuated, multisensory dexterous robotic hands, ROBOMECH Journal, 2016, pp. 4, 3, DOI: 10.1186/s40648-016-0043-5