A low-cost and modular, 20-DOF anthropomorphic robotic hand: design, actuation and modeling

In order to effectively develop the control methods of an anthropomorphic robotic hand, it is important for researchers to have fast and easy access to modify any design parameters. To this end, we detail the process of designing a 20 degrees of freedom, cable-driven, anthropomorphic robotic hand. The prototyping process makes the most of 3D printing technology, and takes important factors such as maintainability and modification into consideration. Skin pads and finger segments of the robotic hand can all be quickly assembled with other components through reliable, structural coupling. And each modular finger can be individually modified with little effort. We also adopt a custom-designed physics engine to model the robotic hand in order to efficiently compute the kinematic configuration. Good performance of tactile sensing, force behaviors, and actuation speed are observed in experiments. Overall, we show our anthropomorphic robotic hand to be cost-effective and flexible to design and control requirements.