• Bioinspired
• Cardellicchio
• Hand
• Robotic
• Design

The aim of this work is to design and develop a bio-inspired robotic hand to be used in manipulation tasks both to test sensory-motor control algorithms and to improve understanding of human hand actuation patterns, with particular reference to neuromotor rehabilitation. The state of the art analysis encompasses a review on the robotic hands developed in the past decades with particular attention on actuation scheme and transmission routing. The design process starts from a biomechanical model of the human hand, eventually deriving Denavit-Hartenberg parameters for both the index finger and the thumb. In a preliminary analysis a brief description of some common actuation systems is provided and, thanks to a minimization procedure, the optimal pulleys radii dimensioning has been developed, if a tendon driven transmission is adopted. Finally, the mechanical design of the robotic hand is addressed comparing different solutions for the robotic hand sub-assemblies and deriving CAD drafts.