Design of an Adaptive Modular Anthropomorphic Dexterous Hand for Human-like Manipulation

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel adaptive modular anthropomorphic hand design that balances actuation complexity and dexterity, inspired by biological hand synergies, and validated through prototype experiments.

Contribution

It introduces a new finger topology with 4 DoFs driven by 2 actuators and develops a modular hand based on biological synergy principles.

Findings

Prototype validation confirms effective dexterous manipulation.

Design achieves a balance between actuation simplicity and dexterity.

Kinematic analysis supports adaptive grasping capabilities.

Abstract

Biological synergies have emerged as a widely adopted paradigm for dexterous hand design, enabling human-like manipulation with a small number of actuators. Nonetheless, excessive coupling tends to diminish the dexterity of hands. This paper tackles the trade-off between actuation complexity and dexterity by proposing an anthropomorphic finger topology with 4 DoFs driven by 2 actuators, and by developing an adaptive, modular dexterous hand based on this finger topology. We explore the biological basis of hand synergies and human gesture analysis, translating joint-level coordination and structural attributes into a modular finger architecture. Leveraging these biomimetic mappings, we design a five-finger modular hand and establish its kinematic model to analyze adaptive grasping and in-hand manipulation. Finally, we construct a physical prototype and conduct preliminary experiments, which validate the effectiveness of the proposed design and analysis.