Parameter design of an underactuated robotic hand considering permissible initial object pose error

Abstract

The underactuated robotic hands is able to adapt to a wide variety of objects without a complex control structure, which makes it an apt end-effector for robotic systems working in unstructured environments, such as, rescue robotic systems, service robots and so on. The finger movements of an underactuated robotic hand is mainly determined by its mechanical design. Recent studies do not consider the movement of the object (to be grasped), which commonly occurs in real-world applications. Therefore, they cannot fully describe the performance of underactuated robotic hands. In order to handle this problem, we introduce the Permissible Initial Object Pose Error (PIOPE) as a performance metric of the underactuated robotic hands. Key aspects of dynamic simulation of under-actuated robotic hands are analyzed to define the design parameter of underactuated robotic hands. The PIOPE and other metrics are calculated with dynamic simulation to examine the influences of design parameters. The method is applied on a kind of underactuated robotic hand. Simulations are carried out to investigate the effects of design parameters and to design the parameters of the underactuated robotic hand.