Biologically inspired posture control for a dexterous robotic hand

A biologically inspired control strategy is presented for producing more human-like movement in anthropomorphic manipulators when in contact with surfaces of varying contours. In preliminary experiments, 10 human subjects were asked to run their hands over several contoured surfaces and the hand motion profiles were recorded. It was observed that humans tended to minimize abduction of the fingers while adapting to the contours of each surface. Based on observations from this data, a control strategy was developed to mimic the tendencies seen in human trials with a robotic hand. Experiments were repeated with the robotic hand using the same surfaces. Results verify that the control strategies developed are capable of producing more biomimetic motion, help to stabilize the system, and enable the manipulator to dynamically react to its environment at a low computational cost.