UC Davis

Due to a high demand for robotic manipulation, many research groups and companies have designed robotic hands to showcase these cutting-edge marvels of mechatronics. However, most of these developments have an inclination towards the prosthetics or biomedical usage, such as rehabilitation. The development of high-dexterity humanoid robotic hands is also crucial for the advancement of automation industries, ranging from electronics to aerospace. In this research, a novel design of a robotic humanoid hand is presented, with fully actuated fingers and high dexterity design to meet the requirements of an industrial assembly environment. One of the key features of the design is its ability to actuate each finger phalange independently, which allows it to perform various grasps poses that are currently difficult or underactuated in the traditional tendon-driven robotic hands. To carry this out, a state-of-the-art lead screw actuation system is developed for each phalange. The robotic hand also includes fingers’ abduction/adduction for power grasps of larger objects, wrist radial-ulnar deviation and wrist flexion/extension, which totally constitutes 18 Degrees of Freedom (DoF) for the whole hand. The developed humanoid robotic hand will be useful in industrial automation and autonomous teleoperation due to its unique functions and economical design.