Design of an underactuated anthropomorphic hand with mechanically implemented postural synergies

Neurology shows that human controls dozens of muscles for hand poses in a coordinated manner and such coordination is referred as to a postural synergy. The concept of postural synergies was recently adopted in the control of robotic hands. With the synergies implemented digitally in a controller, all the motors in an anthropomorphic robotic hand can be controlled via a few synergy inputs. Aiming at exploring alternative approaches for synergy realization, this paper proposes to implement the postural synergies using a mechanical transmission unit. Two rotation inputs can be scaled, combined, and mapped to the rotary outputs to drive an anthropomorphic hand, enabling not only various grasping tasks but also a manipulation motion. Synergy synthesis and design of the anthropomorphic hand are firstly presented. The transmission unit as the implementation of the postural synergies is then elaborated. Tests were performed to quantify how well the synergies could be reproduced via this transmission unit. The results suggest it might be promising to construct a low cost yet versatile prosthetic hand by implementing the postural synergies mechanically.