Tendon-Driven Finger, Wrist, and Thumb Actuation System

The Robonaut 2 (R2) Dexterous Robot is the result of an effort to build a two-armed, ten-fingered humanoid robot torso capable of assembly work. This invention concerns a multi-fingered hand, and is composed of several parts. One is a tendon-driven, four-link, four-degree-of-freedom robotic thumb. Another is an extrinsic actuation system for tendon-driven fingers. The final part is a wrist mechanism with a large range of motion capable of high strength and speed while maintaining human wrist range of motion. The wrist provides pass-through capability for extrinsic hand actuation.