A Systematic Approach to Evaluating and Benchmarking Robotic Hands—The FFP Index

Abstract

The evaluation of robotic hands is a subjectively biased, complex process. The fields pertaining to robotic hands are human-centric in nature, making human hands a good standard for benchmark comparisons of robotic hands. To achieve this, we propose a new evaluation index, where we evaluate robotic hands on three fronts: their form, features and performance. An evaluation on how anthropomorphic robotic hands are in basic mobility, and appearance constitutes the “Form”, while features that can be read, changed and actuated for effective control of robotic hands constitutes the “Features”. We derived these key features from an extensive analysis of robotic hands in literature. Finally, the robotic hands carry out a series of tasks that evaluate their “Performance”. An individual score for each category is drawn and we carry out a three-pronged analysis. We also propose an additional feature in the form of price to provide context when analysing multiple hands.