TY - GEN
T1 - Robot Finger with Remote Center of Motion Mechanism for Covering Joints with Thick Skin
AU - Hsu, Chincheng
AU - Schmitz, Alexander
AU - Kusayanagi, Kosuke
AU - Sugano, Shigeki
PY - 2019/11
Y1 - 2019/11
N2 - An end-effector such as a gripper or multi-fingered hand is essential to enable robots to grasp and manipulate objects of various size and shape. Soft skin increases the grasp stability and can provide space for tactile sensors. However, covering the joints with skin is challenging, typically causing a considerable surface area of multi-segment robot fingers not to be covered by skin. This also creates the risk that objects get pinched in the joints when flexing the fingers. The current paper suggests using a remote center motion (RCM) mechanism to move the center of joint rotation to the surface of a thick skin layer. In particular, a 6-bar mechanism is used. Thereby, a thick soft skin layer with a continuous surface can be realized. Furthermore, adaptive joint coupling with linkages is implemented. In the current paper a 2-fingered gripper is realized, and objects of various size and shape are grasped (from thin paper to objects of 135 mm diameter). The current gripper was manufactured with 3D-printed material to enable rapid prototyping, therefore the payload was limited to only 1 kg for this version. Overall, this paper shows the feasibility of an RCM for a robot finger and discusses the benefits and limitations of such a mechanism.
AB - An end-effector such as a gripper or multi-fingered hand is essential to enable robots to grasp and manipulate objects of various size and shape. Soft skin increases the grasp stability and can provide space for tactile sensors. However, covering the joints with skin is challenging, typically causing a considerable surface area of multi-segment robot fingers not to be covered by skin. This also creates the risk that objects get pinched in the joints when flexing the fingers. The current paper suggests using a remote center motion (RCM) mechanism to move the center of joint rotation to the surface of a thick skin layer. In particular, a 6-bar mechanism is used. Thereby, a thick soft skin layer with a continuous surface can be realized. Furthermore, adaptive joint coupling with linkages is implemented. In the current paper a 2-fingered gripper is realized, and objects of various size and shape are grasped (from thin paper to objects of 135 mm diameter). The current gripper was manufactured with 3D-printed material to enable rapid prototyping, therefore the payload was limited to only 1 kg for this version. Overall, this paper shows the feasibility of an RCM for a robot finger and discusses the benefits and limitations of such a mechanism.
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U2 - 10.1109/IROS40897.2019.8968235
DO - 10.1109/IROS40897.2019.8968235
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85081158403
T3 - IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems
SP - 3172
EP - 3178
BT - 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2019
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 2019 IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2019
Y2 - 3 November 2019 through 8 November 2019
ER -