Analysis and optimal design of an underactuated finger mechanism for LARM hand

Abstract

This paper aims to present general design considerations and optimality criteria for underactuated mechanisms in finger designs. Design issues related to grasping task of robotic fingers are discussed. Performance characteristics are outlined as referring to several aspects of finger mechanisms. Optimality criteria of the finger performances are formulated after careful analysis. A general design algorithm is summarized and formulated as a suitable multi-objective optimization problem. A numerical case of an underactuated robot finger design for Laboratory of Robotics and Mechatronics (LARM) hand is illustrated with the aim to show the practical feasibility of the proposed concepts and computations.

Key words： robotic finger; underactuated mechanisms; design considerations

Acknowledgement

Part of this work has been developed within the project No. 27 of the Italy-China program 2006-2009 and it has been supported by Key International S&T Cooperation Project (No. 2008DFA81280). A period of study of first author at LARM in Cassino during 2007-2008 has been supported by state scholarship program of China Scholarship Council (CSC) and Innovation Foundation of BUAA for Ph.D. Graduates.

References

1 Laliberté T, Gosselin C M. Actuation system for highly underactuated gripping mechanism, US Patent 2003, 6505870

2 Moon Y M. Bio-mimetic design of finger mechanism with contact aided compliant mechanism. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2007, 42(5): 600–611

3 Laliberté T, Gosselin C M. Simulation and design of underactuated mechanical hands. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 1998, 33(1-2): 39–57

4 Birglen L, Gosselin C M. Kinetostatic analysis of underactuated fingers. IEEE Transactions on Robotics and Automation, 2004, 20(2): 211–221

5 Zhang W, Chen Q, Sun Z. Under-actuated humanoid robot hand with changeable grasping force, Journal of Tsinghua University (Sci & Tech), 2003, 43(8): 1143–1147

6 Birglen L, Gosselin C M. Grasp-state plane analysis of two-phalanx underactuated fingers. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2006, 41(7): 807–822

7 Bégoc V, Krut S, Dombre E, Durand C, Pierrot F. Mechanical design of a new pneumatically driven underactuated hand. In: Proceedings of 2007 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, Roma, 2007, 927–933

8 Liu H, Meusel P, Seitz N, Willberg B, Hirzinger G, Jin M, Liu Y, Wei R, Xie Z. The modular multisensory DLR-HIT-Hand. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2007, 42(5): 612–625

9 Algallaf E A. Multi-fingered robot hand optimal task force distribution Neural inverse kinematics approach. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2006, 54(1): 34–51

10 LARM homepage. Available from: http://webuser.unicas.it/weblarm

11 Rodriguez N, Carbone G, Ceccarelli M. Optimal design of driving mechanism in a 1-DOF anthropomorphic finger. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2006, 41(8): 897–911

12 Ceccarelli M, Tavolieri C, Lu Z. Design considerations for underactuated grasp with a one DOF anthropomorphic finger mechanism. In: Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, Beijing, 2006, 1611–1616

13 Carbone G, Ceccarelli M. Design of LARM hand: Problems and solutions. In: Proceedings of 2008 IEEE-TTTC International Conference on Automation, Quality and Testing, Robotics, Cluj-Napoca, 2008, 298–303

14 Nava Rodriguez N E, Carbone G, Ottaviano E, Ceccarelli M. An experimental validation of a three-fingered hand with 1 d.o.f. anthropomorphic fingers. In: Proceedings of the International Conference on Intelligent Manipulation and Grasping, Genova, 2004, 285–290.

15 Wu L, Carbone G, Ceccarelli M. Designing an underactuated mechanism for a 1 active DOF finger operation. Mechanism and Machine Theory, 2009, 44(2): 336–348

16 Yao S, Wu L, Ceccarelli M, Carbone G, Lu Z. Grasping simulation of an underactuated finger mechanism for LARM hand. International Journal of Modelling and Simulation, 2010, 30(1): 87–97