Design and Validation of an Antagonistic Tendon-Driven Dexterous Robotic Hand with Bidirectional Operation

2026-09-28

AI Summary

This study addresses the limitations of conventional anthropomorphic robotic hands, which are restricted to palmar grasping and rely on wrist reorientation for pose adjustment. We propose a bidirectional active actuation scheme that eliminates the need for passive springs. A lightweight, 17-degree-of-freedom (DoF) 3D-printed anthropomorphic hand is developed, incorporating a novel bidirectional antagonistic tendon routing mechanism spanning neutral configurations. This design preserves human-like morphology and scale while enabling active control across all DoFs and versatile grasping from both palmar and dorsal sides. Experimental results demonstrate low transmission error and high bandwidth performance. The system successfully completes all grasp types in the GRASP taxonomy, validating its capability for stable bilateral manipulation.

Abstract

Dexterous robotic hands typically reproduce human hand morphology but inherit its one-sided grasping workspace, requiring wrist or arm reorientation to grasp from the opposite side. Existing reversible hands generally rely on non-anthropomorphic, soft, or task-specific finger arrangements, whereas conventional five-digit anthropomorphic hands remain designed primarily for palmar-side grasping. This paper presents an anthropomorphic, human-scale (200 mm length), lightweight (220 g), 3D-printed, 17-DoF robotic hand built on a bidirectional antagonistic tendon-routing mechanism, in which flexion/extension (except the coupled joint) and abduction/adduction at joints are actively driven without passive return springs. The proposed routing mechanism allows all degrees of freedom to cross their neutral configuration and form grasp closures on either the palmar or dorsal side. Experimental evaluation demonstrates an average motor-to-joint transmission error of 3.0%, an average joint transmission bandwidth of 13.2 Hz, a maximum fingertip force of 29 N, and a positioning repeatability up to 0.15 mm. The hand further achieves a Kapandji score of 8, successfully performs all 33 GRASP Taxonomy grasp types, and performs palmar- and dorsal-side grasping tasks, validating bidirectional operation in a compact, human-scale platform.

Problem

• dexterous robotic hand
• bidirectional grasping
• anthropomorphic design
• antagonistic tendon-driven

Innovation

• Antagonistic tendon-driven
• Bidirectional operation
• Dexterous robotic hand
• Anthropomorphic design
• Tendon-routing mechanism