DYNAMICS AND NONLINEAR COORDINATION CONTROL OF MULTIFINGERED MECHANICAL HANDS

This paper presents a study of the dynamics and nonlinear coordination control of multifingered mechanical hands. Considering the dynamics o f the object and the fingers: the equations of motion are derived in t he finger joint space resulting in a set of differential equations wit h some algebraic constraints. Using dynamic extension, the equations a re converted to the stare space form, which results in a nonlinear sys tem affine in control. For the purpose of control, certain output equa tions are defined. Using the tools of differential geometric control t heory, some important properties of the system are shown. Using these properties, a nonlinear input-output linearizing controller is synthes ized which yields a decoupled linear system. The poles of the resultin g linearized system are then placed appropriately to render desirable features to the system. The theory is validated with an example of a t hree-fingered spatial hand manipulating a cuboidal object.