Experimental Investigation on the Kinematics of an Underactuated Mechanical Finger through Vision-Based Technology

Abstract

Marker-less vision techniques represent a promising route in the development of experimental methods to study the kinematic and the dynamic parameters of mechanical systems. The knowledge of a great number of these parameters is a fundamental issue in the system behaviour analysis and represents an even more crucial aspect for underactuated mechanical systems. In this paper, a technique is proposed to identify the kinematics of the phalanges of an underactuated mechanical finger, starting from the acquisition of the finger point cloud data by means of contactless vision system devices. The analytical model identified allows to determine the underactuated finger configuration as function of the shaft rotation of the single motor of the mechanical system.