Underactuated Finger Topology for Humanoid Robot Grasp

Abstract

Throughout the decades established underactuated finger design, developed self-adaptive, coupled, parallel and other unique grasping modes, in the mechanism also developed linkage, tendon-pulley and other designs, also from the basic two-degree-of-freedom underactuated fingers to the human-like three-degree-of-freedom fingers. In this paper, a design topology to underactuated fingers in series is proposed. Specifically, for the two-degree-of-freedom self-adaptive underactuated finger, a mechanism periodic table is constructed and an addition rule to develop multi-degree-of-freedom self-adaptive underactuated fingers based on this mechanism periodic table is also proposed. Similarly, corresponding topologies are constructed for parallel and coupled self-adaptative grasps. The underactuated finger topology proposed has the potential to significantly expand the mechanical design for underactuated humanoid robotic grasp.