Design of under-actuated humanoid robot finger with shape adaptation

Abstract

To obtain more DOF by fewer actuators with lower control difficulty, under-actuated mechanical fingers are needed, so that a robot hand can grasp objects much better and is more similar to human hand. This paper expends the design idea on under-actuated fingers, and develops an experimental under-actuated finger mechanism. As a finger of a robot hand or a part of a finger, this mechanism makes a robot hand has fewer drivers, but more DOF. It can realize passive adaptive grasp to objects of different shapes and sizes without any extra requirements of control precision. With the property of small, light, but reliable, it is easy to produce. This paper describes its main parameters for design in detail.