A Dexterous Soft Robotic Hand for Delicate In-Hand Manipulation

TLDR

The authors aim to show that soft robotic hands can robustly execute basic in‑hand manipulation primitives even under uncertainty. They designed a prototype soft hand with dexterous fingers, validated its motion‑primitive capabilities while preserving grasp strength, and introduced a heuristic finger gait enabling continuous rotation for diverse object shapes. The hand successfully performed tasks such as unscrewing a jar cap, orienting food items for packaging, and gravity‑compensated grasping, demonstrating robust manipulation without local sensing or complex control.

Abstract

In this letter, we show that soft robotic hands provide a robust means of performing basic primitives of in-hand manipulation in the presence of uncertainty. We first discuss the design of a prototype hand with dexterous soft fingers capable of moving objects within the hand using several basic motion primitives. We then empirically validate the ability of the hand to perform the desired object motion primitives while still maintaining strong grasping capabilities. Based on these primitives, we examine a simple, heuristic finger gait which enables continuous object rotation for a wide variety of object shapes and sizes. Finally, we demonstrate the utility of our dexterous soft robotic hand in three real-world cases: unscrewing the cap of a jar, orienting food items for packaging, and gravity compensation during grasping. Overall, we show that even for complex tasks such as in-hand manipulation, soft robots can perform robustly without the need for local sensing or complex control.