Handyman Hand
For centuries, people have used the human body, and the hand in particular, as an inspiration and blueprint for engineering innovations.
But copying the human hand hasn't been easy. Its complex muscular and skeletal structure offers a unique, tricky balance: It is dexterous, stable and precise, but also fast moving, strong and flexible.
Despite the challenges, makers of robot hands have called on a host of innovations from a variety of disciplines to bring us closer to fully automated hands.
Considered to be the first working robot hand, the Handyman, developed in 1960 by General Electric's Ralph Mosher, was a two-fingered, heavily jointed claw that set up the foundation for later hands.
The design looks rudimentary now, but the five-pivot segment design in each finger was innovative in its attempt to replicate the human hand's flexible joint structure. A human hand is made up of a set of rigid links (bones and muscles) connected at joints. Each joint can have one degree of freedom (hinging or sliding) or two (rotating or cylindrical). We have four degrees of freedom in each finger, giving us enormous flexibility and the ability to make complex motions.
The Handyman's fingers had three degrees of freedom. But it was the attached mechanical forearm that provided most of the wrist action, as mechanical "tendons" pushed and pulled on the fingers. A technician had to manipulate the hand by placing his arm inside the apparatus like a puppet.
The Handyman's capabilities were limited: It could pinch and hold, but had no sensitivity to what it was holding, limiting it to clawing indiscriminately at things.
source by : www.wired.com
For centuries, people have used the human body, and the hand in particular, as an inspiration and blueprint for engineering innovations.
But copying the human hand hasn't been easy. Its complex muscular and skeletal structure offers a unique, tricky balance: It is dexterous, stable and precise, but also fast moving, strong and flexible.
Despite the challenges, makers of robot hands have called on a host of innovations from a variety of disciplines to bring us closer to fully automated hands.
Considered to be the first working robot hand, the Handyman, developed in 1960 by General Electric's Ralph Mosher, was a two-fingered, heavily jointed claw that set up the foundation for later hands.
The design looks rudimentary now, but the five-pivot segment design in each finger was innovative in its attempt to replicate the human hand's flexible joint structure. A human hand is made up of a set of rigid links (bones and muscles) connected at joints. Each joint can have one degree of freedom (hinging or sliding) or two (rotating or cylindrical). We have four degrees of freedom in each finger, giving us enormous flexibility and the ability to make complex motions.
The Handyman's fingers had three degrees of freedom. But it was the attached mechanical forearm that provided most of the wrist action, as mechanical "tendons" pushed and pulled on the fingers. A technician had to manipulate the hand by placing his arm inside the apparatus like a puppet.
The Handyman's capabilities were limited: It could pinch and hold, but had no sensitivity to what it was holding, limiting it to clawing indiscriminately at things.
source by : www.wired.com
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