CONTROL OF A COUPLED TENDON-DRIVEN MULTIFINGERED ROBOT HAND

The issues related to the low level and stiffness control of a multifi ngered robot hand with coupled tendon-driven transmission are discusse d. The hand, which is called POSTECH Hand II, is composed of two finge rs, where the thumb includes two joints and the index finger includes three joints with one degree of kinematic redundancy. Each tendon is a ctuated by a direct current (DC) torque-controlled servomotor with har monic reducer, where specially designed tendon tension sensors are att ached to the nearest point of the joint to perform tension feedback co ntrol. All the controllers are fully digitally implemented to endow fl exibility in implementations and simplify its hardware. At first, low level tension and joint torque control algorithms are developed and ex perimentally verified in a separately designed, one-finger test bed. I n a high level control, a stiffness controller is implemented, and als o, a stiffness control method for the kinematically redundant finger i s implemented.