CLASH: Compliant Low cost Antagonistic Servo Hands

Abstract

This paper presents the first two members of the new generation of CLASH hands, which exploit low cost actuation and rapid prototyping to create antagonistic modular and lightweight hands and grippers. The hands Approach the robustness of the DLR Awiwi hand with a much lower complexity and cost. To reduce the number of required actuators, a differential coupling mechanism for underactuated fingers was developed, along with a new mechanism that uses variable stiffness actuation in order to increase the workspace of underactuated fingers. The hands provide a research platform for both hand-in-hand and robotic grasping. Design aspects are discussed, and an initial experimental validation verifies the hands’ performance