Design of an Integrated Hand-foot End-effector for Multi-legged Robots

In order to expand the application of multi-legged robot, a new concept named integrated hand-foot end-effector which combines both functions of hand and foot at the end of the limb is proposed in this paper. The special structure of the end-effector enables it to interchange between hand and foot. More importantly, the hand-foot switching and the finger grasping can be driven by the same motor because the mechanism of the end-effector has one degree of freedom(DoF). The working process of the end-effector is demonstrated, and through analysis and simulation, the parameters of the finger and the stiffness coefficients of the torsion springs are obtained. The experimental results show that integrated hand-foot end-effector can achieve the smooth switching between hand and foot and grasp different objections.