One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand

In robotic prosthetic hand systems, with small sizes comparable to that of a human hand and consisting of numerous joints, increase in weight due to the use of numerous motors is a major drawback. In this study, a one-to-many system that can simultaneously and independently control the tension of mu...

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Main Authors: Daigo Tokunaga, Satoshi Nishikawa, Kazuo Kiguchi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IEEE 2025-01-01
Series:IEEE Access
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11062903/
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author Daigo Tokunaga
Satoshi Nishikawa
Kazuo Kiguchi
author_facet Daigo Tokunaga
Satoshi Nishikawa
Kazuo Kiguchi
author_sort Daigo Tokunaga
collection DOAJ
description In robotic prosthetic hand systems, with small sizes comparable to that of a human hand and consisting of numerous joints, increase in weight due to the use of numerous motors is a major drawback. In this study, a one-to-many system that can simultaneously and independently control the tension of multiple tendons with a single motor is proposed. The system comprises multiple clutch units, each containing a pulley that winds a tendon connected to a motor. Inspired by the power transmission function of planetary gears, a novel mechanism is proposed to control the power transmitted from the sun gear to the planetary gear by braking the rotation of the ring gear. The clutch unit implementing this mechanism can connect multiple clutch units on the same axis as that of the motor shaft, thus simplifying the conventional connection via gears and belts, resulting in a making the compact, lightweight, and highly scalable mechanism. The basic performance of the proposed mechanism is demonstrated through experiments in which multiple tendons are simultaneously driven under different target tensions. In addition, a tendon-driven robot that anatomically mimics a human index finger is driven, demonstrating the potential of the proposed mechanism for realizing a small robotic hand.
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spelling doaj-art-4cd70d02439a478fbdf189dda96e04c32025-08-20T03:25:02ZengIEEEIEEE Access2169-35362025-01-011312018112018910.1109/ACCESS.2025.358514311062903One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic HandDaigo Tokunaga0https://orcid.org/0009-0009-4191-7521Satoshi Nishikawa1https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0905-8615Kazuo Kiguchi2https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4408-0420Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanDepartment of Mechanical Engineering, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, JapanIn robotic prosthetic hand systems, with small sizes comparable to that of a human hand and consisting of numerous joints, increase in weight due to the use of numerous motors is a major drawback. In this study, a one-to-many system that can simultaneously and independently control the tension of multiple tendons with a single motor is proposed. The system comprises multiple clutch units, each containing a pulley that winds a tendon connected to a motor. Inspired by the power transmission function of planetary gears, a novel mechanism is proposed to control the power transmitted from the sun gear to the planetary gear by braking the rotation of the ring gear. The clutch unit implementing this mechanism can connect multiple clutch units on the same axis as that of the motor shaft, thus simplifying the conventional connection via gears and belts, resulting in a making the compact, lightweight, and highly scalable mechanism. The basic performance of the proposed mechanism is demonstrated through experiments in which multiple tendons are simultaneously driven under different target tensions. In addition, a tendon-driven robot that anatomically mimics a human index finger is driven, demonstrating the potential of the proposed mechanism for realizing a small robotic hand.https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11062903/One-to-many systemunidrive systemtendon-driven robotshumanoid hands
spellingShingle Daigo Tokunaga
Satoshi Nishikawa
Kazuo Kiguchi
One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
IEEE Access
One-to-many system
unidrive system
tendon-driven robots
humanoid hands
title One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
title_full One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
title_fullStr One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
title_full_unstemmed One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
title_short One-to-Many Tendon Driven System for Robotic Prosthetic Hand
title_sort one to many tendon driven system for robotic prosthetic hand
topic One-to-many system
unidrive system
tendon-driven robots
humanoid hands
url https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/11062903/
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AT satoshinishikawa onetomanytendondrivensystemforroboticprosthetichand
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