Controller Studies For Dexterous Hand Manipulation

The UTAH/MIT dexterous hand is a robotic manipulator built to emulate the human tendon system. When using this robotic system, it was observed that when motion occurred at the lower joints, the upper joints moved through inertial coupling. The coupling was always from a proximal joint to a distal joint. It was desired to find a method to add a controller action such that additional joint inputs could be added to the upper joints and thus preclude the coupling effects induced as the joints rotate. A controller was designed and tested in a numerical simulation at Wright State University as part of a Masters of Science degree in Electrical Engineering. With the use of the controller, over 90% of the coupling effects could be reduced with the use of the algorithm developed.