HANDS.DVI: A device-independent programming and control framework for robotic hands

Abstract

The scientific goal of HANDS.DVI consists of developing a common framework to programming robotic hands independently from their kinematics, mechanical construction, and sensor equipment complexity. Recent results on the organization of the human hand in grasping and manipulation are the inspiration for this experiment. The reduced set of parameters that we effectively use to control our hands is known in the literature as the set of synergies. The synergistic organization of the human hand is the theoretical foundation of the innovative approach to design a unified framework for robotic hands control. Theoretical tools have been studied to design a suitable mapping function of the control action (decomposed in its elemental action) from a human hand model domain onto the articulated robotic hand co-domain. The developed control framework has been applied on an experimental set up consisting of two robotic hands with dissimilar kinematics grasping an object instrumented with force sensors.