Gilday Kieran, Sirithunge Chapa, Iida Fumiya, Hughes Josie
CREATE Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Bio-Inspired Robotics Lab, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK.
Sci Robot. 2025 May 14;10(102):eads6437. doi: 10.1126/scirobotics.ads6437.
A human-shaped robotic hand offers unparalleled versatility and fine motor skills, enabling it to perform a broad spectrum of tasks with precision, power, and robustness. Across the paleontological record and animal kingdom, we see a wide range of alternative hand and actuation designs. Understanding the morphological design space and the resulting emergent behaviors can not only aid our understanding of dexterous manipulation and its evolution but also assist with design optimization, achieving and ultimately surpassing human capabilities. Exploration of hand embodiment has, to date, been limited by challenges of accessibility in customizable hands in the real world and by the reality gap in simulation of complex interactions. We introduce an open parametric design that integrates techniques for simplified customization, fabrication, and control with design features to maximize behavioral diversity. Nonlinear rolling joints, anatomical tendon routing, and a low-degree-of-freedom modulating actuation system enable rapid production of single-piece 3D-printable hands without compromising dexterous behaviors. To demonstrate this, we evaluated the low-level behavior range and stability of the design, showing variable stiffness over two orders of magnitude. In addition, we fabricated three hand designs: human, mirrored human with two thumbs, and aye-aye hands. Manipulation tests evaluated the variation in each hand's proficiency at handling diverse objects and demonstrated emergent behaviors unique to each design. Overall, we introduce diverse designs for robotic hands, provide a design space to compare and contrast different hand morphologies and structural configurations, and share a practical and open-source design for investigating embodied manipulation.
人形机器人手具有无与伦比的多功能性和精细运动技能，使其能够精确、有力且稳健地执行广泛的任务。在古生物学记录和动物王国中，我们看到了各种各样的替代手部和驱动设计。了解形态设计空间以及由此产生的涌现行为，不仅有助于我们理解灵巧操作及其进化，还能协助进行设计优化，实现并最终超越人类能力。迄今为止，对手部体现的探索受到现实世界中可定制手部的可及性挑战以及复杂交互模拟中的现实差距的限制。我们引入了一种开放参数设计，该设计将简化定制、制造和控制技术与设计特征相结合，以最大限度地提高行为多样性。非线性滚动关节、解剖学肌腱布线和低自由度调制驱动系统能够快速生产单件3D可打印手，而不会影响灵巧行为。为了证明这一点，我们评估了该设计的低级别行为范围和稳定性，显示出两个数量级以上的可变刚度。此外，我们制作了三种手部设计：人类手、有两个拇指的镜像人类手和指猴手。操纵测试评估了每只手在处理各种物体时的熟练程度差异，并展示了每种设计独特的涌现行为。总体而言，我们介绍了多种机器人手设计，提供了一个设计空间来比较和对比不同的手部形态和结构配置，并分享了一种用于研究具身操纵的实用开源设计。
