Anthropomorphic Cutaneous Tactile Sensing on Dexterous Mechanical Hands

摘要

The goal of this Phase II SBIR contract was to (1) design, fabricate and installultrasonically-based tactile sensors and their associated cables on the Utah/MiT Dextrous Hand (UMDH) supplied by the Air Force, (2) develop compact tactile sensor support electronics for mounting locally, near the sensors, (3) design, construct and test a microprocessor subsystem for operating the sensors, (4) interface the micro-processor subsystem to a host Sun workstation, and (5) write software for controlling the tactile sensors and displaying raw sensor data. Planar and wrap-around arrays were installed on all three digit segments of the thumb and index fingers, and on the finger-tips of the remaining two digits (although these were not connected to the electronics). The sensors were designed so that they could be removed with minimal risk of damage in order to replace tendons in the digits.