Development of the Bioinspired Tendon-Driven DexHand 021 with Proprioceptive Compliance Control
This work advances lightweight, industrial-grade dexterous robotic hands for improved manipulation in manufacturing and daily applications, though it is incremental in combining existing methods.
The researchers tackled the challenge of replicating human hand dexterity in robotics by developing Dex-Hand 021, a lightweight cable-driven hand with 19 degrees of freedom, which achieved a 31.19% reduction in joint torques during grasping and high precision with fingertip repeatability under 0.001 m.
The human hand plays a vital role in daily life and industrial applications, yet replicating its multifunctional capabilities-including motion, sensing, and coordinated manipulation with robotic systems remains a formidable challenge. Developing a dexterous robotic hand requires balancing human-like agility with engineering constraints such as complexity, size-to-weight ratio, durability, and force-sensing performance. This letter presents Dex-Hand 021, a high-performance, cable-driven five-finger robotic hand with 12 active and 7 passive degrees of freedom (DoFs), achieving 19 DoFs dexterity in a lightweight 1 kg design. We propose a proprioceptive force-sensing-based admittance control method to enhance manipulation. Experimental results demonstrate its superior performance: a single-finger load capacity exceeding 10 N, fingertip repeatability under 0.001 m, and force estimation errors below 0.2 N. Compared to PID control, joint torques in multi-object grasping are reduced by 31.19%, significantly improves force-sensing capability while preventing overload during collisions. The hand excels in both power and precision grasps, successfully executing 33 GRASP taxonomy motions and complex manipulation tasks. This work advances the design of lightweight, industrial-grade dexterous hands and enhances proprioceptive control, contributing to robotic manipulation and intelligent manufacturing.