Exploring the Design of a Simultaneous, Parallel, Discrete Joint Control Orthosis for Hand Rehabilitation

This project explores the design of a hand orthosis for rehabilitation which builds upon several pre-existing designs to create a novel mechanism which can provide targeted therapy to one or more discrete joints simultaneously across the lower forearm. This work expands upon and improves the capabilities of hand orthoses to move beyond common design limitations such as controlling only entire fingers or immobilizing crucial regions such as the wrist

Advances in Robot Kinematics : Proceedings of the 15th international conference on Advances in Robot Kinematics

International audienceThe motion of mechanisms, kinematics, is one of the most fundamental aspect of robot design, analysis and control but is also relevant to other scientific domains such as biome- chanics, molecular biology, . . . . The series of books on Advances in Robot Kinematics (ARK) report the latest achievement in this field. ARK has a long history as the first book was published in 1991 and since then new issues have been published every 2 years. Each book is the follow-up of a single-track symposium in which the participants exchange their results and opinions in a meeting that bring together the best of world’s researchers and scientists together with young students. Since 1992 the ARK symposia have come under the patronage of the International Federation for the Promotion of Machine Science-IFToMM.This book is the 13th in the series and is the result of peer-review process intended to select the newest and most original achievements in this field. For the first time the articles of this symposium will be published in a green open-access archive to favor free dissemination of the results. However the book will also be o↵ered as a on-demand printed book.The papers proposed in this book show that robot kinematics is an exciting domain with an immense number of research challenges that go well beyond the field of robotics.The last symposium related with this book was organized by the French National Re- search Institute in Computer Science and Control Theory (INRIA) in Grasse, France

MUSME 2011 4 th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics

El libro de actas recoge las aportaciones de los autores a través de los correspondientes artículos a la Dinámica de Sistemas Multicuerpo y la Mecatrónica (Musme). Estas disciplinas se han convertido en una importante herramienta para diseñar máquinas, analizar prototipos virtuales y realizar análisis CAD sobre complejos sistemas mecánicos articulados multicuerpo. La dinámica de sistemas multicuerpo comprende un gran número de aspectos que incluyen la mecánica, dinámica estructural, matemáticas aplicadas, métodos de control, ciencia de los ordenadores y mecatrónica. Los artículos recogidos en el libro de actas están relacionados con alguno de los siguientes tópicos del congreso: Análisis y síntesis de mecanismos ; Diseño de algoritmos para sistemas mecatrónicos ; Procedimientos de simulación y resultados ; Prototipos y rendimiento ; Robots y micromáquinas ; Validaciones experimentales ; Teoría de simulación mecatrónica ; Sistemas mecatrónicos ; Control de sistemas mecatrónicosUniversitat Politècnica de València (2011). MUSME 2011 4 th International Symposium on Multibody Systems and Mechatronics. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. http://hdl.handle.net/10251/13224Archivo delegad

Biokinematic analysis of human body

Thesis (Doctoral)--Izmir Institute of Technology, Mechanical Engineering, Izmir, 2011Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 118-123)Text in English; Abstract: Turkish and Englishxiii, 123 leavesThis thesis concentrates on the development of rigid body geometries by using method of intersections, where simple geometric shapes representing revolute (R) and prismatic (P) joint motions are intersected by means of desired space or subspace requirements to create specific rigid body geometries in predefined octahedral fixed frame. Using the methodical approach, space and subspace motions are clearly visualized by the help of resulting geometrical entities that have physical constraints with respect to the fixed working volume. Also, this work focuses on one of the main areas of the fundamental mechanism and machine science, which is the structural synthesis of robot manipulators by inserting recurrent screws into the theory. After the transformation unit screw equations are presented, physical representations and kinematic representations of kinematic pairs with recurrent screws are given and the new universal mobility formulations for mechanisms and manipulators are introduced. Moreover the study deals with the synthesis of mechanisms by using quaternion and dual quaternion algebra to derive the objective function. Three different methods as interpolation approximation, least squares approximation and Chebyshev approximation is introduced in the function generation synthesis procedures of spherical four bar mechanism in six precision points. Separate examples are given for each section and the results are tabulated. Comparisons between the methods are also given. As an application part of the thesis, the most important elements of the human body and skeletal system is investigated by means of their kinematic structures and degrees of freedom. At the end of each section, an example is given as a mechanism or manipulator that can represent the behavior of the related element in the human body

The role of morphology of the thumb in anthropomorphic grasping : a review

The unique musculoskeletal structure of the human hand brings in wider dexterous capabilities to grasp and manipulate a repertoire of objects than the non-human primates. It has been widely accepted that the orientation and the position of the thumb plays an important role in this characteristic behavior. There have been numerous attempts to develop anthropomorphic robotic hands with varying levels of success. Nevertheless, manipulation ability in those hands is to be ameliorated even though they can grasp objects successfully. An appropriate model of the thumb is important to manipulate the objects against the fingers and to maintain the stability. Modeling these complex interactions about the mechanical axes of the joints and how to incorporate these joints in robotic thumbs is a challenging task. This article presents a review of the biomechanics of the human thumb and the robotic thumb designs to identify opportunities for future anthropomorphic robotic hands

Bio-Inspired Robotics

Modern robotic technologies have enabled robots to operate in a variety of unstructured and dynamically-changing environments, in addition to traditional structured environments. Robots have, thus, become an important element in our everyday lives. One key approach to develop such intelligent and autonomous robots is to draw inspiration from biological systems. Biological structure, mechanisms, and underlying principles have the potential to provide new ideas to support the improvement of conventional robotic designs and control. Such biological principles usually originate from animal or even plant models, for robots, which can sense, think, walk, swim, crawl, jump or even fly. Thus, it is believed that these bio-inspired methods are becoming increasingly important in the face of complex applications. Bio-inspired robotics is leading to the study of innovative structures and computing with sensory–motor coordination and learning to achieve intelligence, flexibility, stability, and adaptation for emergent robotic applications, such as manipulation, learning, and control. This Special Issue invites original papers of innovative ideas and concepts, new discoveries and improvements, and novel applications and business models relevant to the selected topics of ``Bio-Inspired Robotics''. Bio-Inspired Robotics is a broad topic and an ongoing expanding field. This Special Issue collates 30 papers that address some of the important challenges and opportunities in this broad and expanding field

Innovative robot hand designs of reduced complexity for dexterous manipulation

This thesis investigates the mechanical design of robot hands to sensibly reduce the system complexity in terms of the number of actuators and sensors, and control needs for performing grasping and in-hand manipulations of unknown objects. Human hands are known to be the most complex, versatile, dexterous manipulators in nature, from being able to operate sophisticated surgery to carry out a wide variety of daily activity tasks (e.g. preparing food, changing cloths, playing instruments, to name some). However, the understanding of why human hands can perform such fascinating tasks still eludes complete comprehension. Since at least the end of the sixteenth century, scientists and engineers have tried to match the sensory and motor functions of the human hand. As a result, many contemporary humanoid and anthropomorphic robot hands have been developed to closely replicate the appearance and dexterity of human hands, in many cases using sophisticated designs that integrate multiple sensors and actuators---which make them prone to error and difficult to operate and control, particularly under uncertainty. In recent years, several simplification approaches and solutions have been proposed to develop more effective and reliable dexterous robot hands. These techniques, which have been based on using underactuated mechanical designs, kinematic synergies, or compliant materials, to name some, have opened up new ways to integrate hardware enhancements to facilitate grasping and dexterous manipulation control and improve reliability and robustness. Following this line of thought, this thesis studies four robot hand hardware aspects for enhancing grasping and manipulation, with a particular focus on dexterous in-hand manipulation. Namely: i) the use of passive soft fingertips; ii) the use of rigid and soft active surfaces in robot fingers; iii) the use of robot hand topologies to create particular in-hand manipulation trajectories; and iv) the decoupling of grasping and in-hand manipulation by introducing a reconfigurable palm. In summary, the findings from this thesis provide important notions for understanding the significance of mechanical and hardware elements in the performance and control of human manipulation. These findings show great potential in developing robust, easily programmable, and economically viable robot hands capable of performing dexterous manipulations under uncertainty, while exhibiting a valuable subset of functions of the human hand.Open Acces

Design and development of robust hands for humanoid robots

Design and development of robust hands for humanoid robot

Advances in Bio-Inspired Robots

This book covers three major topics, specifically Biomimetic Robot Design, Mechanical System Design from Bio-Inspiration, and Bio-Inspired Analysis on A Mechanical System. The Biomimetic Robot Design part introduces research on flexible jumping robots, snake robots, and small flying robots, while the Mechanical System Design from Bio-Inspiration part introduces Bioinspired Divide-and-Conquer Design Methodology, Modular Cable-Driven Human-Like Robotic Arm andWall-Climbing Robot. Finally, in the Bio-Inspired Analysis on A Mechanical System part, research contents on the control strategy of Surgical Assistant Robot, modeling of Underwater Thruster, and optimization of Humanoid Robot are introduced

Adaptive and reconfigurable robotic gripper hands with a meso-scale gripping range

Grippers and robotic hands are essential and important end-effectors of robotic manipulators. Developing a gripper hand that can grasp a large variety of objects precisely and stably is still an aspiration even though research in this area has been carried out for several decades. This thesis provides a development approach and a series of gripper hands which can bridge the gap between micro-gripper and macro-gripper by extending the gripping range to the mesoscopic scale (meso-scale). Reconfigurable topology and variable mobility of the design offer versatility and adaptability for the changing environment and demands. By investigating human grasping behaviours and the unique structures of human hand, a CFB-based finger joint for anthropomorphic finger is developed to mimic a human finger with a large grasping range. The centrodes of CFB mechanism are explored and a contact-aided CFB mechanism is developed to increase stiffness of finger joints. An integrated gripper structure comprising cross four-bar (CFB) and remote-centre-of-motion (RCM) mechanisms is developed to mimic key functionalities of human hand. Kinematics and kinetostatic analyses of the CFB mechanism for multimode gripping are conducted to achieve passive-adjusting motion. A novel RCM-based finger with angular, parallel and underactuated motion is invented. Kinematics and stable gripping analyses of the RCM-based multi-motion finger are also investigated. The integrated design with CFB and RCM mechanisms provides a novel concept of a multi-mode gripper that aims to tackle the challenge of changing over for various sizes of objects gripping in mesoscopic scale range. Based on the novel designed mechanisms and design philosophy, a class of gripper hands in terms of adaptive meso-grippers, power-precision grippers and reconfigurable hands are developed. The novel features of the gripper hands are one degree of freedom (DoF), self-adaptive, reconfigurable and multi-mode. Prototypes are manufactured by 3D printing and the grasping abilities are tested to verify the design approach.EPSR