Control of twisting manipulation using a multi-fingered robotic hand with a common rotational axis

Abstract

The main purpose of the present study is to prove the usability of a mechanism with a common rotational axis during twisting manipulation using a multi-fingered robotic hand where two fingers and two other fingers can independently rotate in inner and outer circles with a dual turning mechanism. Although various types of conventional multi-fingered hands have potential capability to achieve twisting manipulations such as opening a bottle cap from within a hand, it is well-known that such tasks are difficult to execute quickly due to limited working space of the fingers and complexity of control. The proposed hand with a common rotational axis is effective in rotational manipulation around a particular axis, where each joint role assignment is completely decoupled into internal force control for grasping an object and velocity control around the axis for rotating the object. We prove the usability of this mechanism with a common rotational axis through the use of a control scheme, and show experimental results involving manipulation tasks where twisting manipulation is dominant.