Design of an ergonomic three-finger haptic device for advanced robotic hands control

Nowadays, almost all kinesthetic haptic devices commercially available have been conceived and developed for just one interaction point. Many mechanical conflicts arise when trying to put to work together two or more conventional haptic devices. Due to collisions and other incompatibilities the resulting workspace when using these configurations is usually too small, making this a non-viable option. Therefore, a new multi-finger haptic device called MasterFinger 3 is developed to meet the demands of freedom of movement within a wide workspace. The aim of the new haptic device presented in this paper is to allow an intuitive human-machine interaction in a natural fashion. This interaction permits the end-user to control and operate an advanced robotic hand precisely. In order to reach this purpose, the attitude of at least three fingers should be measured. Moreover, the attitude of the other two fingers can be deduced from those measurements. Consequently, the mechanical design and the electronic architecture are described in detail in the following sections.