A static intrinsically passive controller to enhance grasp stability of object-based mapping between human and robotic hands

Abstract

Abstract-Replicating human hand capabilities on robotic hands is a great challenge in robotics. The high complexity of mechanical and actuation systems of available robotic device can be, however, considerably mitigated if a human inspired control is considered. In this paper the application of an objectbased mapping to the control of robot hands is presented. The basic idea is to use a virtual object, e.g. a virtual sphere, to capture human hand motion generating suitable reference signals for a low level controller of the robotic hand. The low level controller considered, which shares the idea of virtual object to reduce the complexity of the control, is the static Intrinsically Passive Controller (s-IPC). This controller is inspired by the dynamic IPC, but provides a simpler and more efficient implementation. The proposed approach allows to map motion of a human hand model, controlled on the reduced subspace of postural synergies, onto robotic hands guaranteeing the stability of the robotic grasp. This concept, which has been experimentally validated in the paper, can be exploit for complex planning methods or used in telemanipulation application.

Human to Robot Hand Motion Mapping Methods: Review and Classification

“…The same transformation is then imposed to related empirically selected reference points of the RH fingers (e.g., TH fingertips in [90]), and finally joint values are obtained by means of inverse kinematics. The virtual object approach was also demonstrated to guarantee stability of robotic grasps when used in conjunction with higher level passivity-based controllers [84]. Applications to bilateral telemanipulation can be found in [89] and [85].…”

Mechatronic designs for a robotic hand to explore human body experience and sensory-motor skills: a Delphi study

“…Particularly, synergies can guide the enforcement of inter-digit coordination, which can be implemented mechanically or by means of control [22]. Besides tailoring design and control to specific motion tasks, the concept of synergies also enables controllers to map human hand motions onto robotic hands with dissimilar kinematics [23,24].…”