Development of anthropomorphic robot hand with dual-mode twisting actuation and electromagnetic joint locking mechanism

In this paper, the anthropomorphic robot hand is newly proposed by adopting dual-mode twisting actuation and EM joint locking mechanism. The proposed robot hand consists of five finger modules. Each finger has four links and three joints, and Joint 2 and 3 are coupled by the four-bar linkage mechanism. The dual-mode twisting actuation allows that the robot finger can move fast (up to 356.7 deg/sec) in Mode I and generate a large grasping force(up to 36.5 N) in Mode II. In addition, the workspace of the robot finger module is enlarged by EM joint locking mechanism depending on the locking states. In order to verify the effectiveness of the mechanisms adopted in the robot hand, we theoretically and numerically analyze the performances of the robot finger module such as bending speed, fingertip force, and workspace. Finally, through the developed robot hand, we perform the grasping test for various objects and the grasping performance is experimentally demonstrated.