An Underactuated Robot Finger with Movable Skeleton Link and Hoeckens Mechanism for Linear Clamping and Self-adaptive Grasping

Abstract

Parallel grasping is the most important way to grasp objects, and it is sometimes the only way to grasp objects on the desktop. The robot hand with parallel grasping function has one disadvantage: the trajectory of the end phalanx is circle in translation, which makes the robot hand depend on the lifting motion of the manipulator when parallel pinching thin plate objects on the desktop. A novel type of robot finger, an adaptive underactuated finger with linear translation at the end, called HKL finger, is designed and implemented based on Hoeckens linkage mechanism. HKL finger has the special effect of translating the second phalanx in a straight line, which can parallel clamp objects of different sizes. At the same time, it has the function of self-adaptive grasping. The robot finger is driven by only one motor, and it is easy to control. HKL finger can be applied in industrial assembly lines with wide adaptability and good grasping effect.