Towards the development of a minimal anthropomorphic robot hand

Many robot hands in the literature try to achieve full kinematic anthropomorphism, and as such are often very complex and difficult/expensive to produce. This paper follows recent work that predicts that high dexterity can also be achieved through a minimal (reduced) anthropomorphic design. New experimental and simulation results that optimize grasping performance for a minimal hand are presented. A first prototype of the hand, incorporating the optimized kinematics as well as innovative endoskeletal mechanical and actuation architectures, has been designed. The robot hand prototype has been fabricated using fused deposition modelling technology, and is evaluated with respect to its grasping performance.