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Hand: open-source Robot Hand

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Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#21
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

Would you prefer necrobotics!?!

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/scientists-use-dea...

How long until human hands are put on robotics??

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#22
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

A human hand is probably the most appropriate design for a robot to grip a variety of things that were designed to be gripped by human hands.

For any one specific thing, be it a doorknob, a rope, a sheet of paper or fabric, or a pair of scissors, there's probably a different design that's several orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper, and also much stronger and more reliable. Single-axis parallel grippers, circumferential chucks, vacuum cups/vacuum pads, electromagnets, cam lock and release mechanisms, and so on are common in industrial robotics.

Assume your robot's only task is to grab a spool with a 35 +/-0.5 mm ID core from from an infeed rack and place it on a spindle, you're not going to try to build a five-finger human sized servo-operated hand and tuck two of those fingers away to awkwardly pinch outwards from the inside, you're going to grab a Schunk JGZ concentric gripper off the shelf and plumb a pair of air lines to it. If it also needs to grab a tab from some tape on the spool and pull it into the machine, you're just going to add an asymmetric pincer like an angular tumor on two of the jaws - or graft on an entire separate parallel gripper like some polydactyl appendage, or tool-change, amputating and reattaching hands at will.

I have also observed that humans are quite good at anthropomorphizing robot arms: a small, well-tuned motion can be universally recognized as a nod of agreement, shrug of confusion, wave of acknowledgement, or sigh of disappointment, even if the equipment is a bright yellow 6-axis piece of cast iron with menacing claws where the hand (or face? they're often the same) should be. Googley eyes and a "Hi my name is" sticker make this even more convincing.

But if you need a single tool to grip a doorknob, a rope, a sheet of paper, a pair of scissors, AND an unknown variety of other arbitrary household objects... it's probably best to start with an approximation of the human hand. Also, while claws may be appropriate for a work environment with the robot inside a fence, in collaborative situations hands are just less intimidating.

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#24
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

Why should not we build robots that mimic us?

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#25
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

Among other things, the ability to pretrain for a task by just copying human motion is pretty powerful.

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#26

The bigger or biggest question is - how much weight it can lift? If we assume it can lift half a pound, then what changes it’d require to make it lift 10/20/30 pounds and so on?

hands hold, arms lift — a hand without an arm isn't going to have much strength

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#28
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

I agree that there are some robotic designs that unnecessarily mimic human limbs. I have in mind heads, and feet (instead of wheels).

A hand however, is useful because so many manufactured objects have been constructed for their purpose.

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#29
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

A human hand is probably the most appropriate design for a robot to grip a variety of things that were designed to be gripped by human hands. For any one specific thing, be it a doorknob, a rope, a sheet of paper or fabric, or a pair of scissors, there's probably a different design that's several orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper, and also much stronger and more reliable. Single-axis parallel grippers, circumfe…

Good point, well put.

Re: Hand: open-source Robot Hand

#30
post #7

This looks like a nice, approachable robotic model of a human hand that can be printed and experimented with. But... is a human hand the best design for a robot to grip things with? Or could we surmise that the human hand evolved as a pretty good hand given the materials and senses that were available to evolve humans from , while in theory a totally different design might be optimal for gripping when constructed fro…

A human hand is probably the most appropriate design for a robot to grip a variety of things that were designed to be gripped by human hands. For any one specific thing, be it a doorknob, a rope, a sheet of paper or fabric, or a pair of scissors, there's probably a different design that's several orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper, and also much stronger and more reliable. Single-axis parallel grippers, circumfe…

> For any one specific thing, be it a doorknob, a rope, a sheet of paper or fabric, or a pair of scissors, there's probably a different design that's several orders of magnitude simpler and cheaper, and also much stronger and more reliable.

Also, if you’re designing a robot gripper for any one specific thing, it’s quite possible that you can tweak the design of that specific thing to make the task easier. As an extreme example, screws and screw drivers evolve in parallel.

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