Port-Hamiltonian analysis of a novel robotic finger concept for minimal actuation variable impedance grasping

Abstract

Abstract-This paper introduces a novel robotic finger concept for variable impedance grasping in unstructured tasks. A brief literature survey reveals the need for minimal component designs and the benefits of impedance control schemes for interaction tasks such as grasping. The novel robotic finger concept supports these insights by combining three key features: minimal actuation, variable mechanical compliance and full manipulability. This combination of features allows for a minimal component design, while reducing control complexity and still providing required dexterity and grasping capabilities.The conceptual properties (such as variable compliance) are studied in a port-Hamiltonian framework. The framework proved to be suitable in analyzing and understanding the finger properties, which will be used for future controller design.

A Port-Hamiltonian Approach to Control DC-DC Power Converters

“…Over the years, the PortHamiltonian approach has been applied to different kind of systems. For example, it has been applied to robotics [9,26,35], mechanical systems [1,5,30], power electronic converters [4,8,23,25,31,32,33,34], electrical motors [3,4,12] among many others. The Port-Hamiltonian approach is a relatively new approach to control systems, some controllers developed using this technique have shown excellent performance.…”

Multi-joint gripper with stiffness adjuster

“…The wire driven series of joint became the most typical mechanical architecture that has been followed by a lot of subsequent studies [2][3][4][5][6]. The mechanisms proposed in these studies will satisfy the BD, ISD and SC requirements or a part of them, but the most crucial problem of these studies resides in using much number of wires for driving series of joints, which gives rise to the following troubles on actual assembling and controlling.…”

Compliance analysis of an under-actuated robotic finger

“…A novel minimal component biomimetic robotic finger concept with variable compliance was introduced to alter these complications [3]. The concept utilizes under-actuation (inspired by [4] and [5]), which reduces both the number of heavy power actuators and the grasp control complexity, while it improves versatility.…”

“…The paper is organized as follows. Section II summarizes the model of the under-actuated finger presented in [3]. Section III analyzes the compliance properties of the underactuated finger.…”