Analysis of underactuated mechanical grippers

This paper presents the concept of underactuation applied to grippers and m echanical hands. The main objective of this work is the kinematic analysis and design of underactuated mechanisms. First, the kinematic and static mod eling of these mechanisms is addressed and a general kinetostatic model is proposed. Then, a two-degree-of-freedom underactuated gripper based on a fi ve-bar planar mechanism is studied in order to illustrate the usefulness of the model in a context of analysis and design.