Multi-fingered robotic hand employing strings transmission named “Twist Drive”

A goal of our research is to produce a light-weight, low-cost five fingered robotic hand that has similar degrees of freedom as a human hand. The joints in the fingers of the developed robotic hand are powered by a newly proposed strings transmission named “Twist Drive”. The transmission converts torque into a pulling force by using a pair of strings that twist on each other. The basic characteristics of the transmission are given in the paper. A robotic hand prototype with 18 joints of which 14 are independently powered by Twist Drives was produced. The size of the hand is equal to the size of an adult human's hand and its weight including the power circuits is approximately 800 grams. The mechanical and the control systems of the hand are presented in the paper.