Systematic object-invariant in-hand manipulation via reconfigurable underactuatuation: introducing the RUTH gripper
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Published version
Author(s)
Lu, Qiujie
Baron, Nicholas
Clark, Angus B
Rojas, Nicolas
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
We introduce a reconfigurable underactuated robot hand able to perform systematic prehensile in-hand manipulations regardless of object size or shape. The hand utilises a two-degree-of-freedom five-bar linkage as the palm of the gripper, with three three-phalanx underactuated fingers—jointly controlled by a single actuator—connected to the mobile revolute joints of the palm. Three actuators are used in the robot hand system in total, one for controlling the force exerted on objects by the fingers through an underactuated tendon system, and two for changing the configuration of the palm and thus the positioning of the fingers. This novel layout allows decoupling grasping and manipulation, facilitating the planning and execution of in-hand manipulation operations. The reconfigurable palm provides the hand with a large grasping versatility, and allows easy computation of a map between task space and joint space for manipulation based on distance-based linkage kinematics. The motion of objects of different sizes and shapes from one pose to another is then straightforward and systematic, provided the objects are kept grasped.This is guaranteed independently and passively by the underactuated fingers using a custom tendon routing method, which allows no tendon length variation when the relative finger base positions change with palm reconfigurations. We analyse the theoretical grasping workspace and grasping and manipulation capability of the hand, present algorithms forcomputing the manipulation map and in-hand manipulation planning, and evaluate all these experimentally. Numericaland empirical results of several manipulation trajectories with objects of different size and shape clearly demonstrate the viability of the proposed concept.
Date Issued
2021-12-01
Date Acceptance
2021-08-19
Citation
International Journal of Robotics Research, 2021, 40 (12-14), pp.1402-1418
ISSN
0278-3649
Publisher
SAGE Publications
Start Page
1402
End Page
1418
Journal / Book Title
International Journal of Robotics Research
Volume
40
Issue
12-14
Copyright Statement
© The Author(s) 2021. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
License URL
Sponsor
Engineering & Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC)
Identifier
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/02783649211048929
Grant Number
EP/R020833/1
Subjects
Science & Technology
Technology
Robotics
Underactuated robotic hand
in-hand manipulation
dexterous manipulation
ROBOT HAND
DESIGN
COMPLIANT
Industrial Engineering & Automation
0801 Artificial Intelligence and Image Processing
0906 Electrical and Electronic Engineering
0913 Mechanical Engineering
Publication Status
Published
Date Publish Online
2021-10-22