3D-Printed Robotic Hand Plays the Piano with Passive Movement

Dec-25-18 A 3D-printed robotic hand relies on passive movement to replicate the human hand with less energy use.

The 3D-printed hand explores the potentials of mechanical design alone—in this case, replicating the bones and ligaments but not muscles or tendons in the human hand. Soft and rigid materials were used in combination to create the 'bones and ligaments' in the robotic hand, which was then attached to a UR5 robotic arm controlled by a Python API. Although the hand’s fingers do not move independently, the hand was still able to play a tune on the piano simply by moving its wrist

According to the team’s Josie Hughes, "Smart mechanical design enables us to achieve the maximum range of movement with minimal control costs: we wanted to see just how much movement we could get with mechanics alone."

More Info about this Invention:

[SCIENCEMAG.ORG]
[CAM.AC.UK]

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