Excerpt from Robotics Research Technical Report, Vol. 2: An Initial Finger Design for an Industrial Hand

In the technical report by Walker (1985) a finger design was described which had two finger joints that were actuated by a single pneumatic spring return piston at each joint. When this finger was built and operated it was found that the small pistons were powerful enough to actuate the finger and that the actuation scheme, which exploited the static pressure associated with a steady flow compressed air line, allowed the piston to be exposed to pressures that ranged from atmospheric to the full reservoir pressure, by merely varying the degree to which a ball valve in the main compressed air line was closed. These tests subsequently showed that the actuation scheme and mechanical design of the finger were sound and as a result it was decided to design and build a more advanced finger that would have two additional degrees of freedom and a control system that would allow the position and compliance of all its joints to be controlled automatically. This report will therefore describe these changes in design and address the issues of instrumentation and control that.

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