Nonlinear kinematics-based position control of a tendon-driven gripper inspired by the actin-myosin mechanism

초록

This study aims to design and implement a tendon-driven robotic gripper inspired by the operating principles of the muscle-tendon unit, drawing on the interaction between actin and myosin. Tendon drives actuators remotely, reducing distal inertia and enabling naturally conformal grasping across diverse objects; however, conventional approaches often employ fewer actuators than degrees of freedom or exhibit strong inter-joint couplings, making joint-level precision control and contact-force maintenance difficult. Steel cables offer high strength and durability but can accumulate losses due to bending and contact effects, whereas polymer cables are lightweight and flexible yet exhibit creep and hysteresis, leading to gradual drift of reference states during prolonged use. This work analyzes tendon routing and the resulting variations in effective moment arms, quantitatively characterizes the time-dependent behavior of the cables, identifies factors that degrade precise grasping, and proposes improvement strategies. The paper is organized as follows: a description of the overall gripper architecture and kinematic characteristics; analysis and modeling of cable creep and hysteresis; and experimental validation of the proposed approach.

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