A Bio-Inspired Architecture of a Motor System for Virtual Creatures: Reverse Engineering of the Human Hand for the Creation of a LEGO Mindstorms™ Robotic Hand

This paper presents a LEGO Mindstorms (TM) model of a inspired human hand, which is able to grasp things in a similar way that us humans do. The hand is controlled by a cognitive architecture that recreates the functionality of a bio-inspired motor system, that is, a set of software structures that mimic the behavior of parts of the central nervous system that are involved in the execution, planning and coordination of movements. The movement of the robotic hand is achieved through motor commands that are sent to the actuators, which in this case are recreations of the human muscles and tendons by means of servo motors and nylon thread. The main advantages of this approach are the realization of real-time motion, the architecture of the motor system is independent of the hardware or software, and the high scalability of the system due to the bio-inspired cognitive architecture.