Design, fabrication and preliminary results of a novel anthropomorphic hand for humanoid robotics: RCH-1

Among social infrastructure technologies, robot technology (RT) is expected to play an important role in solving the problems of both decrease of birth rate and increase of elderly people in the 21st century, specially but not only in Japan. In order to achieve this objective, the new generation of personal robots should be capable of a natural communication with humans by expressing human-like emotion. In this sense, human hands play a fundamental role in communication, because they have grasping, sensing and emotional expression ability. This paper presents the recent results of the collaboration between the Takanishi Lab of Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, and the Arts Lab of Scuola Superiore Sant´Anna, Pisa, Italy, and ROBOCASA. In this paper, the development of a novel anthropomorphic hand for humanoid robotics RCH-1 (ROBOCASA Hand No.1) and its integration into a humanoid robotic platform, named WE-4RII (Waseda Eye No.4 Refined II) is presented.