Abstract
In the field of robotic hand design, soft body and anthropomorphic design are two trends with a promising future. Designing soft body anthropomorphic robotic hands with human-like grasping ability, but with a simple and reliable structure, is a challenge that still has not been not fully solved. In this paper, we present an anatomically correct robotic hand 3D model that aims to realize the human hand’s functionality using a single type of 3D-printable material. Our robotic hand 3D model is combined with bones, ligaments, tendons, pulley systems, and tissue. We also describe the fabrication method to rapidly produce our robotic hand in 3D printing, wherein all parts are made by elastic 50 A (shore durometer) resin. In the experimental section, we show that our robotic hand has a similar motion range to a human hand with substantial grasping strength and compare it with the latest other designs of anthropomorphic robotic hands. Our new design greatly reduces the fabrication cost and assembly time. Compared with other robotic hand designs, we think our robotic hand may induce a new approach to the design and production of robotic hands as well as other related mechanical structures.
Highlights
The human hand is dexterous as it has a complex and high-efficiency mechanical structure [1]
There are three main approaches to duplicate a human hand with a robotic hand
McKibben muscle” and “bubble artificial muscles”, have similar shape and flexibility as natural muscle. They require air pressure as an input and the efficiency is not as high as that of real muscles [17,18]. These soft robotic hands do not aim at mimicking human hand grasping gestures
Summary
The human hand is dexterous as it has a complex and high-efficiency mechanical structure [1]. Most of them have a complete soft body structure design, causing them to move like invertebrates, or resulting in a weak grip force [11,16,24,25] Another problem is that all existing actuators such as SMA, pneumatic actuators, and hydraulic actuators cannot fully duplicate the muscle function while taking up the same volume [26]. They require air pressure as an input and the efficiency is not as high as that of real muscles [17,18] For these reasons, these soft robotic hands do not aim at mimicking human hand grasping gestures. Three new robotic hands were created following a similar design concept [28,29,30] These designs all have functional parts to simulate human hand bones, ligaments, and tendons, which are made of different materials such as rubber, silicone, or cotton wire.
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