A 22-DOFs Bio-inspired Soft Hand Achieving 6 Kinds of In-hand Manipulation

Abstract

Bio-inspired soft robots present distinctive superiorities in safety issues working in a human-centered environment. Soft robotic hands are of prominent popularity for soft robots to be applied in real applications. With continuous efforts being devoted, researchers have been developing various soft hands performing excellent grasping capability towards daily objects with salient safety insurance. However, the functional dexterity of soft robotic hands is still limited, especially because lacking in-hand object manipulation capabilities, which inevitably limits the application potential of soft robotic hands. This restriction is induced by the limited dexterity of soft actuators usually with a one-DOF per actuator providing a predefined motion trajectory. To tackle this challenge, a novel bio-inspired multi-DOF soft actuator based on V-joint is proposed, which achieves human finger-joint-like motion. By connecting the V-joint in a desired order, it is possible to build multi-DOF soft robots like traditional rigid counterparts. A 22-DOFs anthropomorphic soft hand (S-22) is fabricated out based on the V-joint, which is capable of realizing dexterous hand gestures and 6 kinds of in-hand manipulation. The presented soft robotic approach is a promising solution for dexterous soft robotic hand design and broden the potential application of soft hands.