An anthropomorphic underactuated robotic hand with 15 dofs and a single actuator

This paper presents the design and experimental validation of an anthropomorphic underactuated robotic hand with 15 degrees of freedom and a single actuator. First, the force transmission design of underactuated fingers is revisited. An optimal geometry of the tendon-driven fingers is then obtained. Then, underactuation between the fingers is addressed using differential mechanisms. Tendon routings are proposed and verified experimentally. Finally, a prototype of a 15-degree-of-freedom hand is built and tested. The results demonstrate the feasibility of a humanoid hand with many degrees of freedom and one single degree of actuation.

I. INTRODUCTION

Over the last decades, numerous research initiatives addressed the challenge of designing and building versatile robotic hands. Pioneer designs include: the Utah/MIT hand [1], the Stanford/JPL (Salisbury's) hand [2], the DLR hands [3], the Okada hand [4] and several others. As pointed out by many authors, such a design exercice involves finding a compromise between versatility and simplicity in order to obtain relevant practical systems [5].