Abstract:
There has been great progress in soft robot design, manufacture, and control in recent years, and soft robots are a tool of choice for safe and robust handling of objects in conditions of uncertainty. Still, dexterous in-hand manipulation using soft robots remains a challenge. This talk introduces a novel class of soft robots in the form of multi-fingered foam hands actuated by tendons sewn through a fabric glove. The flexibility of tendon actuation allows for high competence in utilizing deformation for robust in-hand manipulation. We discuss manufacturing, control, and experimental results for tendon-driven foam hands and demonstrate robust grasping and in-hand manipulation on a variety of different physical hand prototypes.

Committee:
Nancy Pollard
Chris Atkeson
Jim McCann
Ankit Bhatia