Design of Dexterous Arm-Hand for Human-Assisted

Manipulation

L. Wang, M. Xie, Z.W. Zhong, H.J. Yang, and J. Li

School of Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University

Singapore 639798

Abstract. Arm-hand subsystem, as the manipulator and end-effecter of a hu-

manoid robot, is important from application point of view since humanoid robot
is expected to help people in the future. A powerful arm-hand system can per-
form as many tasks as human beings do. However, owe to limited space and
weight, humanoid robots were usually equipped with simple-structured upper
limbs, especially for hand. In this paper, a multi-DOF and dexterous arm-hand
module is presented, which owns lightweight and compact structure with in-
cremental encoder, absolute encoder in each joint as well as force/torque sensor
to feedback the force information. Moreover, the arm-hand module adopts dis-
tributed control system for joint actuators, which is compact and easy to be
installed inside.

Keywords: Humanoid Robot, Arm-hand System, Distributed Control System.

1 Introduction
Humanoid robots were developed out with the purpose that they could serve people as
elderly, patients [1] and communicate with people in ordinary life. At present, there
are several existing prototypes in the world, such as ASIMO, HRP2, HUBO, and
QRIO [1-5]. They share several common characteristics as excellent biped walking
and friendly appearance. However, they are provided with a preliminary arm-hand
system and can only perform simple tasks. For example, ASIMO has a 5-DOF arm
and each hand with just one DOF [2], while HRP2 has a 6-DOF arm but only has
champ instead [3]. Although HUBO has 6-DOF arm with 5-DOF for one single hand,
the thumb is placed opposite to the other fingers [4], which makes the hand less hu-
manlike. Humanoid arm-hand module with limited DOFs is largely restricted the
motion and task it can achieve.
Though there are a lot of achievements on industrial robot arm as well as dexterous
hand, for example: DLR dexterous hand which has 13 independent degrees of free-
dom and powerful sensor on the fingers [6]. But the emphasis of humanoid arm-hand
differs from them. In contrast with industrial robot, which mainly focuses on me-
chanical rigidity, precision and high velocity [7], a humanoid upper limb should have
humanlike appearance, movable joints that corresponds to human being, and light-
weight structure.
This paper gives insight into the development of mechanical structure and control
system of the humanoid robot Loch’s upper limb, which is desired to have the ability
of grasping, pulling, pushing, carrying, throwing and interaction with human.

C. Xiong et al. (Eds.): ICIRA 2008, Part II, LNAI 5315, pp. 1233–1240, 2008.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2008
1234 L. Wang et al.

2 Humanoid Arm-Hand System Design

2.1 Specification

To make a more human-like appearance, the physical parameters of the arm-hand

system are decided according to the standard human. However, the mass distribution
of the arm-hand system has to be adjusted for mounting actuators and sensors, which
take a considerable part of the total weight. Table 1 presents comparison of the di-
mensions between human being and robot as well as the mass distribution.

Table 1. Arm-hand specification

Mass (kg)
Length (mm)
Human being Robot
Forearm 1.4×2 2.5×2 280
Upper Arm 2.4×2 3×2 320
Hand 0.6×2 1.8×2 160
Whole Body 75 75~85 1750

The degrees of freedom (DOF) of the arm-hand system are presented in Fig.1. To
be more specific, each arm of the robot has six degrees of freedom including three in
shoulder, one in elbow and two in wrist. This enables the robot have similar kinemat-
ics as human being and do majority of things in the ordinary life. Meanwhile each
hand is assigned to have 6 independent degrees of freedom along with four passive
ones. Since the limited space of the hand, the passive DOFs with simpler structure
enable the hands to approach more functions.

Fig. 1. DOF Distribution on arm-hand system

Movement Range
For movement range of each joint, we designed that to be about the same as that of
standard human so that the humanoid robot performs human tasks as well as human.
Table 2 shows the data on movable range of upper arm, fore arm and hand with com-
parison with standard human respectively.
 Design of Dexterous Arm-Hand for Human-Assisted Manipulation 1235

Table 2. Joint movement range

Joints Human being robot

Shoulder Pitch -45 deg. to 90 deg. -180 deg. to 180 deg.
Roll - 90 deg. to 30 deg. - 120 deg. to 30 deg.
Yaw -30 deg. to 80 deg. -180 deg. to 180 deg.
Elbow Pitch -140 deg. to 10 deg. -135 deg. to 0 deg
wrist Pitch - 30 deg. to 55 deg. - 30 deg. to 30 deg.
Yaw -180 deg. to 10 deg. -180 deg. to 180 deg.
Hand Pitch 0 deg. to 90 deg. 0 deg. to 90 deg.

However, as shown above, some movable ranges of humanoid joints should be ad-
justed by several reasons. Firstly, some joints’ movable range, such as that of shoul-
der pitch and roll are extended since we require the humanoid robot to perform
motions that are impossible for human. While shoulder yaw and wrist yaw movement
ranges are enlarged because it is easy for robot to attain wider range that exists in
human with current configuration. However, ranges of elbow pitch and wrist pitch are
slightly reduced for the constraint of structures.

Appearance Design

The appearance of the robot’s upper limb is restricted by three constraints. The first is
having the similar profile of that of a human. The second is the consideration of the
DOF distribution and installment of actuators. And the last is the arm-hand system
should be adequate to its application and some emergency cases. The final exterior of
arm and hand is showed in Fig.2.

Fig. 2. Appearance of Arm-hand and Upper Body

In the design above, the shoulder roll and pitch motions can easily attain a relative
large scope, and the yaw actuator is allocated along the upper arm. Further more, the
three axes of the shoulder joint intercross at one point; this would be helpful for the
computing of planning in the further research. As to the elbow joint, the movement
range of elbow joint is limited and hard to attain that of human being for structural
1236 L. Wang et al.

constraint, thus axis offset is made to extend the movement range. The wrist joint has
two DOFs, and the wrist yaw movement is allocated along the forearm the same as
shoulder yaw. This will help to reduce the distal weight of the arm. The hand has a
palm and five fingers, except for the two-DOFs thumb, the other fingers will only
have one actuator each for the compact space.

2.2 Structure Design

The structure design focuses on the mechanical modules that realize the objects estab-
lished above. This will include the actuators, transmission structure, sensor mounting,
and wiring.

Joint Structures of Arm

In order to simplify the joint structure, the joint principals are grouped. There are
altogether two kinds of structures utilized under the constraints of the dimensions of
motors and the space to install the transmission structures. The first one is directly-
driven structure (Fig.3), in which the power is transferred from the motor to output
shaft through transmission structure such as timing pulley/belt, harmonic gear or
worm/worm wheel. In elbow joint, the motor is connected with a set of timing pul-
ley/belt and harmonic gear serially; while in wrist pitch joint, the transmission system
is consist of motor and worm/worm gears. After that, the output speed is reduced and
the torque is enlarged. There is also a set of absolute encoder mounted on the shaft to
detect the real-time position of the joints. This structure is not only compact-sized,
easy to install but also capable of structure braking when the motor is out of power.

Fig. 3. Directly-driven Structures

The second one is the relative-driven structure. In this structure, the harmonic gear
works in a different method as compared with the former one.
Harmonic gear is consisted of three components: circular spline (CS), flexspline
(FS) and wave generator (WG) and it has several work modes. Usually CS is fixed
and FS is connected with output shaft, however, in relative-driven structure, the roles
of CS and FS are exchanged as shown in Fig.4a. This structure is adopted in wrist
 Design of Dexterous Arm-Hand for Human-Assisted Manipulation 1237

Fig. 4. a. Different Applications of Harmonic Gear; b. Wrist Yaw Joint

yaw, shoulder yaw and shoulder roll joints. Fig.4b presents the detailed structure of
wrist yaw joint: the output shaft of the motor is connected with wave generator of the
harmonic gear, while FS and CS are fixed with outer flame and inner shell separately.
Two angular contact bearings are connected with the inner sleeve and outer frame
respectively. When the power of motor is on, the inner shell, which works as the out-
put of the structure, will rotate in a reduced speed. The outstanding advantage of this
structure is that it can afford large spatial forces; it is useful since the arm works in a
unconstructed environment.

Joint Structures of Hand

There are 6 independent DOFs, and 4 passive DOFs for each hand. And the thumb is
assigned two independent DOFs while the other four fingers are assigned one inde-
pendent and one passive DOF.
The structure of the thumb is presented in Fig.5: two DC motors coupled with worm
gears drive two bevel gears, which are connected with a cross-axle structure. This
mechanism can move in two orthogonal orientations, resulting in a two-DOF structure.

Fig. 5. Mechanical Structure of Thumb and the Prototype

Fig.6 shows the structure for each finger, a DC motor coupled with worm gear
converts the rotating movement into the bending motion. A 4-link structure is used
between the first and second segments of the finger. With suitable configuration, the
two segments can bend with same velocity and position.
1238 L. Wang et al.

Fig. 6. a. Worm/Worm Wheel Transmission; b. 4-link Structure

2.3 Absolute Encode and Force/Torque Sensors

While the robot is performing a task, it is important to know the posture and the force
imposed on the joints. Thus, force and position sensors are required to give sensory
feedback to the robot. Totally, two kinds of position sensors are chosen according to
the requirements of precision and limits of dimension: one is used on the arm, while
the other is on the fingers as shown in Fig.7a and Fig.7b.
Moreover, force/torque sensor is utilized as force sensor to provide force and
torques data for manipulation in three axis. Fig.7c shows a kind of force/torque sensor
from ATI industrial Automation.

Fig. 7. a: Absolute Encoder b: Potentiometer c: F/T Sensor

2.4 Distributed Control System

Comparing to industrial robot arm, in which one motion control card covering CPU,
power amplifier, and data acquisition drives all the actuators, humanoid arm-hand
should keep compact and lightweight modules since the number of sensors and actua-
tors is large, or it will make the control system complex and lead problems in wiring
and installation. Finally distribute controller system (DCS) is adopted, and the whole
control system is consisted of two levels: the high level is in charge of task space
planning and organizes the whole system; While the low level control corresponds to
the local control unit, which is consisted of local micro-process unit, power amplifier
 Design of Dexterous Arm-Hand for Human-Assisted Manipulation 1239

Fig. 8. Arm-hand Control System and One Local Control Unit

and A/D,D/A converter. The two levels communicate through TCP/IP protocol. That
is, to some extend, similar to the human nervous system, which is consisted of the
central and peripheral nervous system.

3 System Integration and Prototype

The prototype of the arm-hand system is shown as below. It contains all the joints
modules and sensors. The total mass of the arm-hand is about 7.0 kg, which is less
than the initial assignment and the movement ranges of the joints are quite close to the
planned data.

Fig. 9. Prototype of Arm-hand System

4 Conclusion
This paper presented how we developed the advanced arm-hand module for Loch,
which is expected to have the ability of grasping, pulling, pushing, following, throw-
ing and other motions. Several compact mechanisms are developed to provide dexter-
ous joints for these tasks, what is more, a distribute control system to manage all the
information and drive the joint actuators. Till now, basic functions are tested and
more experiments are planned to refine the arm-hand system in the next step.
1240 L. Wang et al.

Acknowledgement
The authors would like to thank the project sponsor. In particular, the guidance and
advices from Lim Kian Guan, Cheng Wee Kiang, Ngiam Li Lian and New Ai Peng
are greatly appreciated.

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