Design and Characterization of a Rigid-Flexible Coupled Pneumatic Robotic Hand

This paper presents a pneumatically driven biomimetic robotic hand inspired by a human hand, exhibiting higher biological similarity and mechanical stiffness compared to the conventional soft robotic hands. The proposed robotic hand is composed of five soft actuators with embedded mechanical springs, acting as rigid supports of the soft actuators. To improve the mechanical strength of the actuators, the actuators are fabricated as a single product using lost-wax process with the embedded springs together. To investigate the bending deformation and mechanical property of the actuator, both the numerical simulations and experiments are employed in the work. We found that the unique structure of the actuator significantly enhances the bending angle and grasping force of the robotic hand. Specifically, the robotic hand’s mechanical property is notably improved, making it capable of grasping heavy objects. Finally, a series of applications confirm the excellent grasping performance of the robotic hand, demonstrating its ability for different objects. The proposed robotic hand holds potential promise for providing biomimetic functions in some fields such as healthcare and assistive robotics.