The anthropomorphic design and experiments of HIT/DLR five-fingered dexterous hand

This paper presents a new developed anthropomorphic robot dexterous hand: HIT/DLR Hand II. The hand is composed of an independent palm and five identical modular fingers, and each finger has three degree of freedom (DOFs) and four joints. All the actuators and electronics are integrated in the finger body and the palm. Owing to using a new actuator, drivers and a novel arrangement, both the length and width of the finger is about two third of its former version. By using the wire coupling mechanism, the distal phalanx transmission ratio is kept exactly 1:1 in the whole movement range. The packing mechanism which is implemented directly in the finger body and palm not only reduces the size of whole hand but also make it more anthropomorphic. Additionally, the new designed force/torque and position sensors are integrated in the hand for increasing multisensory capability. To evaluate the performances of the finger mechanism, the position and impedance control experiments are conducted.