A Vision-Based Collocated Actuation-Sensing Scheme for a Compliant Tendon-Driven Robotic Hand

The ability to sense compliant interactions through internal state measurements improves adaptability and robustness of robotic grasping and manipulation, without interfering with any carefully designed passive dynamics. This work presents a collocated sensing and actuation system using a compliant tendon driven hand and its accompanying model. Using a simple vision-based measurement device the approach is able to estimate its internal state and applied external forces. The camera-based sensor uses off-the-shelf components and has the ability to measure many more than 15 tendons simultaneously, giving a low-cost, scale-able, high-bandwidth sensing solution. The collocated configuration provides a framework for developing stable feedback controllers. Our results show that the system can estimate change in posture with $\lt 10$% error with the potential to estimate contact forces using the same scheme.