A summary of the design and realization of a robotic finger based on innovative concepts

The aim of the paper is that of summarizing the experience of design and realization of a “home-made” robotic finger based on some unconventional ideas. The device which is presented is the exploitation of some concepts expressed in the context of an EC funded project called AMADEUS: the “elephant-trunk” principle is the basis and it is used for the implementation of an underwater gripper that we actuated by means of high bandwidth electro-hydraulic devices working with oil at low pressure. The whole system is then controlled by a sliding mode based technique. The special manipulator based on the use of such fingers as described in this paper is devoted to delicate deep underwater sampling operations