Kinematic modeling and control design of a multifingered robot hand

The paper addresses the problem of kinematic modeling and control design of a multifingered robot hand. The fingers are modeled as independent serial manipulators and the kinematic constraints are derived from empirical observations due to the complex structure of the mechanism. The pose control problem for the fingertips is solved by using the kinematic control approach, which ensures the asymptotic stability of the output tracking error. The kinematic control algorithm is extended to include the contact model and the hand Jacobian to allow for the positioning control of grasped objects. Experimental results obtained with a three-fingered robot hand illustrate the applicability of the proposed methodology.