A Robotic Hand with Soft Transmission Systems for Automated Operations of Computer Mouse

Abstract

Soft robotic hands are highly effective for daily object grasps and in‐hand manipulations. This article presents the design of a soft robotic hand specifically developed for operating a computer mouse. Also, a fabrication method is introduced for a bellows‐enclosed soft transmission system (BESTS) inspired by the water vascular system in starfish. The BESTS serves as a transmission structure in the soft robotic hand. Experiments demonstrate that the soft hand, equipped with four servos, can perform 11 distinct mouse operations, including pressing and scrolling operations. By integrating a camera into the hand, the soft hand can automatically carry out computer mouse operations through vision‐based control strategies. Furthermore, this system enables users to control the proposed soft hand on a robotic arm via speech commands. Experimental results show that this system can handle typical office and gaming tasks, holding the potential for applications in office scenes and gaming hardware plug‐ins.