Teleoperation of an Anthropomorphic Robot Hand with a Metamorphic Palm and Tunable-Stiffness Soft Fingers
Abstract
Teleoperation in soft robotics can endow soft robots with the ability to perform complex tasks through human–robot interaction. In this study, we propose a teleoperated anthropomorphic soft robot hand with variable degrees of freedom (DOFs) and a metamorphic palm. The soft robot hand consists of four pneumatic-actuated fingers, which can be heated to tune stiffness. A metamorphic mechanism was actuated to morph the hand palm by servo motors. The human fingers' DOF, gesture, and muscle stiffness were collected and mapped to the soft robotic hand through the sensory feedback from surface electromyography devices on the jib. The results show that the proposed soft robot hand can generate a variety of anthropomorphic configurations and can be remotely controlled to perform complex tasks such as primitively operating the cell phone and placing the building blocks. We also show that the soft hand can grasp a target through the slit by varying the DOFs and stiffness in a trail.
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Copyright 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
History
Published online: 20 June 2024
Published in print: June 2024
Published ahead of print: 21 February 2024
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No competing financial interests exist.
Funding Information
This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2020YFB1313003) and National Science Foundation support projects, China (Grant Nos. 91848206, 92048302, T2121003).
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