Development of robot finger using ultrasonic motors driven by superimposed signal input

When developing a multi-fingered robot hand driven by ultrasonic motors (USM), complicated wiring may become one of the essential problems. This study introduces a novel driving method for multiple USMs using superimposed signal input to overcome this problem. First, we designed a robot finger driven by built-in USMs. The robot finger has four joints with three-degree-of-freedom, i.e., DIP joint is dependent to PIP joint. Second, we developed USMs which are suitable for the robot finger actuation. Finally, we developed and characterized the robot finger with the superimposed signal input.