A four-tendon robotic finger with tendon transmission inspired by the human extensor mechanism

Abstract

This paper presents a tendon-driven robotic finger with its inspiration derived from the human extensor mechanism. The analytical model presented relates the contractions of the intrinsic muscles of the human hand to abduction–adduction and coordinated motion of proximal and distal interphalangeal joints. The design presented is simplified from the complex webs of fibers appearing in prior works, but preserves the dual role the interossei have of abducting/adducting the finger and flexing it at the metacarpal-phalangeal joint with the finger outstretched. The anatomical feature in our design is that the proximal interphalangeal joint passes through a set of lateral bands as the finger flexes. We discovered that by including a mechanical stop that causes the lateral bands to ‘fold’ at large enough flexion aids coordinated movements of the two interphalangeal joints as the finger flexes. Because it involves engineering running and sliding fits, this finger admits a concise kinematic model, which accurately predicts the tendon excursions from a known pose. In this work, however, we evaluate what happens when the model is used to search for a sequence of tendon excursions corresponding to a desired movement. We perform several such sequences of tendon excursions experimentally and present the poses that result using motion capture. We also demonstrate executing several types of grasps on an underactuated robotic hand that incorporates this finger design.