Mechatronic Design of a Self-Contained Dexterous Robotic Hand for Gestural Communication

The hand is the most representative tool of the human body because of its complexity, dexterity, and precision. The high amount of both electronic and mechanical components results in a very difficult integration of all components inside the hand. The main objective of this work is to develop a fully integrated gestural robotic hand based on new design concepts that combine mechanics and electronics to provide a solution to the problem of limited space. ManoPla is a gestural hand, so its naturalness, low weight and full integration are the main design requirements. In this way, mechanisms that allow joint mobility have been developed using elastic components. The Color Gradient Method was applied to feed back the position of the joints. In addition, a novel thumb design with 4 degrees of freedom has been developed, including an advanced trapezium design. The Cutkosky grasp taxonomy was successfully reproduced to demonstrate the mobility of the hand proposed in this study. An impact test demonstrated the flexibility of the joints thanks to the SEA actuation approach. The main contributions of this paper are new design concepts to integrate mechanics and electronics inside the hand. In this way, ManoPla can easily be included as a gestural module of a humanoid robot for social interaction.