Based on flexible pneumatic actuator (FPA), bending joint and side-sway joint, a new kind of pneumatic dexterous robot finger was developed. The finger is equipped with one five-component force sensor and four contactless magnetic rotary encoders. Mechanical parts and FPAs are integrated, which reduces the overall size of the finger. Driven by FPA directly, the joint output torque is more accurate and the friction and vibration can be effectively reduced. An improved adaptive genetic algorithm (IAGA) was adopted to solve the inverse kinematics problem of the redundant finger. The statics of the finger was analyzed and the relation between fingertip force and joint torque was built. Finally, the finger force/position control principle was introduced. Tracking experiments of fingertip force/position were carried out. The experimental results show that the fingertip position tracking error is within ±1 mm and the fingertip force tracking error is within ±0.4 N. It is also concluded from the theoretical and experimental results that the finger can be controlled and it has a good application prospect.
Based on flexible pneumatic actuator FP A, two new kinds of pneumatic rigid-flexible joints are proposed. Three bending joints and one side-sway joints are used for designing two kinds of 4-DOF robot fingers. When inflating the FP A of each joint of 4-DOF fingers with different compressed air pressure, the fingers can simulate human fingers and realize bending movement and side-sway movement. Then the 20-DOF robot multi-fingered dexterous hand composed five fingers and a palm is designed which is named ZJUT Hand. Driving directly by FPA is ZJUT Hand's most notable characteristic. Because of this, ZJUT Hand has many advantages such as good adaptability, simple structure, small size and little energy loss and so on. At last, simulation experiments are carried to verify the grasping ability of ZJUT Hand. Simulation experimental results show that ZJUT Hand can complete power grasp and precision grasp for objects with different size and shape.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.