A Force-Isotropic Underactuated Finger

This paper presents the design of a new underactuated finger. The main characteristic of this two-degree-of-freedom / one-actuator finger is to be force-isotropic. This means that the intensity of the forces exerted at the center of each phalanx, on the grasped object, are identical. Until now, this characteristic was observed on some underactuated fingers for some very specific configurations only (mainly when the phalanxes were lined up). With the proposed finger, this characteristic remains true whatever the configuration of the phalanxes is.