Extending modules for iCub simulator to emulate human grasp forms

Functionalities of the hand of the iCub simulator have been extended so as to make the simulator robot make grasp forms like a human hand. This is achieved by sending signal for one of the six common types of human hand grasps, viz. power, pinch, precision, hook, oblique and palm-up from a server to a kinematic solver which then calculates the joint angles for each finger of the robot and feeds these results to a motion controller which finally moves the finger actuators to form the grasp. A geometric approach to solve the manipulator kinematics is used owing to almost planar nature of the finger manipulators of the iCub hand and small number of independent joint variables.