Experimental Characterization of Fingertip Trajectory following for a 3-DoF Series-Parallel Hybrid Robotic Finger

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates precise fingertip trajectory tracking in a compact 3-DoF robotic finger using a resolved motion rate control scheme, achieving millimeter-level accuracy and establishing a benchmark for dexterous manipulation.

Contribution

It provides the first systematic experimental characterization of task-space trajectory tracking in a linkage-driven robotic finger with analytic kinematics.

Findings

Achieved millimeter-level accuracy in fingertip trajectory tracking.

Validated the effectiveness of RMRC in a 3-DoF robotic finger.

Established a benchmark for future dexterous manipulation research.

Abstract

Task-space control of robotic fingers is a critical enabler of dexterous manipulation, as manipulation objectives are most naturally specified in terms of fingertip motions and applied forces rather than individual joint angles. While task-space planning and control have been extensively studied for larger, arm-scale manipulators, demonstrations of precise task-space trajectory tracking in compact, multi-DoF robotic fingers remain scarce. In this paper, we present the physical prototyping and experimental characterization of a three-degree-of-freedom, linkage-driven, series-parallel robotic finger with analytic forward kinematics and a closed-form Jacobian. A resolved motion rate control (RMRC) scheme is implemented to achieve closed-loop task-space trajectory tracking. We experimentally evaluate the fingertip tracking performance across a variety of trajectories, including straight lines, circles, and more complex curves, and report millimeter-level accuracy. To the best of our knowledge, this work provides one of the first systematic experimental demonstrations of precise task-space trajectory tracking in a linkage-driven robotic finger, thereby establishing a benchmark for future designs aimed at dexterous in-hand manipulation.