Design of a 3D-Printed Soft Robotic Hand With Integrated Distributed Tactile Sensing
- Resource Type
- Periodical
- Authors
- Shorthose, O.; Albini, A.; He, L.; Maiolino, P.
- Source
- IEEE Robotics and Automation Letters IEEE Robot. Autom. Lett. Robotics and Automation Letters, IEEE. 7(2):3945-3952 Apr, 2022
- Subject
- Robotics and Control Systems
Computing and Processing
Components, Circuits, Devices and Systems
Robot sensing systems
Sensors
Soft robotics
Thumb
Robots
Grasping
Grippers
Soft robot applications
soft sensors and actuators
multifingered hands
additive manufacturing
- Language
- ISSN
- 2377-3766
2377-3774
Humans rely on distributed tactile sensing in their hands to achieve robust and dexterous manipulation of delicate objects. Soft robotic hands have received increased attention in recent years due to their adaptability to unknown objects and safe interactions with the environment. However, the integration of distributed sensing in soft robotic hands is lacking. This is largely due to the complexity in the integration of soft sensing solutions with the hands. This letter proposes a novel soft robotic hand that incorporates an active palm and distributed pneumatic tactile sensing in both the fingers and the palm. Multi-material 3D printing allows the tactile sensors to be directly printed on the hand, whereas conventional tactile approaches require the sensors to be attached as part of multiple fabrication procedures. Active degrees of freedom are introduced in the palm to achieve increased dexterity. The proposed hand successfully performed 32 of the 33 Feix taxonomy grasps and all 11 Kapandji thumb opposition poses.