Modular Bioinspired Hand with Multijoint Rigid-Soft Finger Possessing Proprioception.

Abstract

Soft robot hands have the advantage of remarkable adaptability for grasping. Especially for the soft and fragile objects, soft fingers had presented their much excellent potential compared with their rigid counterparts. However, less degree of freedom, lower force output, lack of proprioception, and poor controllability still limit the application. Inspired by the anatomical structure of the human hand and following the idea of combining soft joints, rigid skeletons and embedded soft curvature sensors, modular dexterous hands composed of multijoint fingers are proposed in this study. Each finger has three quasi-joints, in which metacarpophalangeal soft-joint can realize adduction/abduction and bending motions, and distal two interphalangeal soft-joints are actuated by one actuator. Similar to human hand, soft-joint so-called quasi-joint has a short length of constant curvature segment. The integrated Indium Gallium Alloy sensors with Kelvin Bridge for proprioception can accurately detect joint angles, while closed-loop control based on proprioception was accomplished. Kinematics and statics modeling method of the rigid-soft finger is proposed. To further verify the performance of this design, prototypes of three-fingered and five-fingered hands are developed. The multifingered hands had demonstrated their capability of adaptive grasp and dexterous manipulation, while the force output of the three-fingered hand is up to 31.82 N, and 32 grasp types had accomplished by the five-fingered hand.