Dexterous hand driven by shape memory alloy

Abstract

The invention discloses a dexterous hand driven by shape memory alloy. The dexterous hand comprises three fingers which are structurally consistent, a palm and a control system. Each finger is composed of distal knuckle bone, a middle knuckle bone and a proximal knuckle bone. Bending and stretching of one whole finger are achieved by finger joints, side sway of the fingers is achieved by the joints among the proximal finger bones, and bending and stretching of the distal knuckle bones are achieved by the joints among the distal finger bones. The three fingers have nine joint freedom degrees totally, and each joint is driven forwardly and reversely by a swinging mechanism composed of two shape memory alloy metal wires. The control system comprises a Windows PC (personal computer), a real-time controller, an I / O (input / output) module, a drive circuit and an angular sensor. The shape memory alloy metal wires are internally disposed in the fingers and the palm of the dexterous hand to directly drive the finger joints, and accordingly a medium drive mechanism is omitted. The dexterous hand is simple and compact in structure, small in size and light in weight and is suitable for being used as an end actuator of a mechanical arm which is light in load to implement dexterous grabbing and precision operation of objects different in shape and size.

Description

technical field [0001] The invention belongs to the technical field of robots, in particular to a dexterous hand driven by a shape memory alloy. Background technique [0002] The human fingers are primarily controlled by groups of muscles in the forearm, attached to tendons wrapped in tendon sheaths that extend to the ends of the fingers. Generally, the flexion and extension of each joint is controlled by two opposing muscles. After the muscles contract, the motion is transmitted to the joint through the tendon. The existing artificial muscle-driven dexterous hand basically installs the artificial muscle that can produce contraction motion in the forearm, and drives the rotation of the distal finger through the artificial tendon. This design method will bring about two main problems. First, because the fingers have more degrees of freedom, the artificial tendon that drives the rotation of the distal joint needs to pass through the wrist, palm and fingers to connect to the d...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

The finger designed by the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Victoria, Canada adopts the shape memory alloy driver produced by Miga Motor Company, and the driver is placed externally, and the tendon transmission method is relatively bulky and cumbersome.

The huge drive equipment of the five-fingered robotic hand designed by MIT limits its scope of use.

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