A Control for Multi-Fingered Robotic Hand with Distributed Touch Sensor

Abstract

A robotic hand and its control system are developed. This hand has five fingers and 22 D.O.F. (16 for fingers and 6 for arm). The surface of the hand is covered with distributed touch sensor that has more than 600 measuring points. This system can control the position, orientation, velocity and force of multiple points on the hand simultaneously. The effectiveness of this system is shown by the experiment in which our robotic hand holds scissors and achieves a paper-cutting task. The event-driven task execution is also developed and used for the experiment. This system watches the event that signals the change of the constrained state of the hand and switches control points and behavior of the hand dynamically according to the detected event.