Grasping with Embedded Synergies through a Reconfigurable Electric Actuation Topology

Kinematic and force synergies can be used to reduce the complexity and dimensionality of the motion generation and control problem, as well as facilitate the mechanical implementation of robotic hands. In this paper we present a novel implementation of hardware synergies realized on the actuation level by leveraging a novel reconfigurable electric actuation topology principle. The proposed electric actuation topology enables different actuation synergies by changing the interconnections among the actuators at the electrical/motor driver level. We describe the synergies and their implementation in a port-based context, and elaborate how equivalent hard and soft synergies emerge from the electric power flow within different actuation topologies. We realize the reconfigurable electric actuation topology scheme in the HERI III hand, a novel robust and powerful robotic gripper, also introduced in this paper, resulting in easy to control behaviours like on industrial grippers or underactuated hands, but with the high grasping versatility of fully actuated hands. Finally we present grasping experiments performed on the HERI III hand that clearly show the desired behaviours and validate the innovative proposed scheme.