COSA-ET finger: A coupled and self-adaptive underactuated robot finger with double springs and an empty-trip mechanism

摘要

This paper introduces a novel underactuated robot finger, called COSA-ET finger, which can perform coupled and self-adaptive (COSA) hybrid grasping modes. The COSA-ET finger has two joints, mainly consists of an actuator, two phalanges, two shafts, an empty-trip (ET) transmission mechanism, a set of reverse transmission mechanism, two driving pulleys, two belts, a limiting pulley, a limiting block and two springs. A robot hand made of COSA-ET fingers can executes multiple grasping modes depending on the dimensions, shapes and positions of objects including coupled pinching, enveloping, and especially the coupled and self-adaptive (COSA) hybrid grasping. The empty-trip mechanism is the trigger of transition of grasping modes. Kinematics and statics analysis show the distribution of contact forces and the switch condition of COSA-ET finger. The COSA-ET hand has a wide range of applications.