Integrated Mechatronic Design for a New Generation of Robotic Hands

A miniaturized optical force sensor for tendon-driven mechatronic systems: Design and experimental evaluation

“…On the other hand, by introducing force and torque feedback, it is possible to reject disturbance torques acting on the motion transmission chain of any robot, from industrial manipulators to anthropomorphic robotic hands [13,14,6,15,11], thus significantly improving the performance in the case of both position, force or, more in general, impedance control [16][17][18][19]. In the last decade, the growing interest in the development of lightweight and human-friendly robots increases the importance of torque/force sensors.…”

“…Prototypes of the new tendon-driven robotic hand, called UBH-IV [11] (University of Bologna Hand, version IV), developed with the DEXMART project [12] is shown in Fig. 1.…”

Mapping Grasps from the Human Hand to the DEXMART Hand by Means of Postural Synergies and Vision

“…Based on a previous prototype, the so-called UB Hand IV (University of Bologna Hand, version IV) [2], the DEXMART Hand has been designed with an improved thumb kinematics. The new design aims at a human-like manipulation capabilities and mobility, allowing the opposition of the thumb with the other four fingers.…”

“…According to recent grasp taxonomy literature [21], in [8] and [9] a set of 36 human hand grasp configurations was selected and adopted for experiments carried out on a preliminary prototype of the DEXMART Hand [18], the UB Hand IV [2]. The mapping of the human grasps to the robotic hand was obtained by means of a joint-to-joint mapping technique, i.e.…”

“…• The hand mechanics is based on an endoskeletal structure articulated by means of pin joints integrated into the phalanx body simply consisting in a plastic shaft which slides on a cylindrical surface [2,5,14].…”