A humanoid robotic hand performing the sign language motions
Kiyoshi Hoshino' and Ichiro Kawabuchi'
'Institute of Engineering Mechanics and Systems, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, 305-8573,Japan
2
TechExperts, Inc., Ohmori-nishi, Ohta-ku, 143-0015, Japan
Abstract:
In this paper, studies have been made in five for the
purpose of realization of the robot hand that is capable of
conveying feelings and sensitivities by linger movement.
Fint, a small-shed and light-weight robot hand was
developed to he used as the humanoid according to the
concept of extracting required minimum motor functions
and mounting them to the robot. Second, basic
characteristics of movements were checked by
experiments, simple feedforward control mcchanism was
designed based on speed control, and a system capable of
tracking joint timeseries change command with arbitrary
shape was realized. Third, tracking performances with
rcgard to sinusoidal input with different frequencies were
studied for evaluation of the system thus realized, and
space and time-related accuracy were investigated.
Fourth, linger character movementl by signal language
were generated as examples of information transmission
by finger movements. A series of resulw thus obtained
indicated that t h b robot hnnd is capable of transmitting
information promptly with comparatively high accuracy
through movements. Finally, the remote control was
enabled through data glove with regressive model
obtained by the singular value decomposition.
I. INTRODUCTION
Some types of robot systems have been developed
aiming at realhation of human cooperative and coexistence
type robots capable of executing complicated works in good
cooperation and coexistent with human being in the working
space and living space of humans. To allow smooth actions in
these environmentsand transmission of information, almost all
systems are equipped with two arms as well as two legs for
movement, and visual and audio equipment such as a camera
or a microphone. However, functions of the hands are limited
mostly to grasping and holding an object article, and pushing
upldown a lever. Compared with walking skill, degree of
freedom assigned to manipulation functions and to fingers is
extremely low. A robot with four-fingers each having
three-degrees of freedom has been developed for
high-performance remote manipulation. Manipulation
technique is still in underdevelopment stage, their appearance
is different from five fingers of human being and their weight
is in some cases two times heavier. Therefore, realization of
robot hands equipped with functions well suited for practical
use is highly expected.
Conventional studies were carried out from viewpoints
of the recognition hnction to implement intellectual features
into the machine. Human being has sensitivities to recognize
"beautiful" or "pleasant" through our perception. Some
researchers pointed out that it is possible to establish a new
society where human being and the machine can coexist if the
machine is designed to have such sensitivities. It is reported
that in daily conversation, 7% of the information is conveyed
by languages, 38% by voices, and 55% by facial expressions
2003 INTERNATiONAL SYMPOSIUM ON
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and gestures[lJ Therefore, in order to design a robot system
that can understand human feeling and sensitivity from
gestures or contrary to this, can pour its soul into own action
for the sake of coexistence with human being, two conditions
should be met. One is that She, weight or appearance or
configuration of the joint should be similar to those of humans
and the other is that functions should be nearly equivalent to
those of human fingers.
Successful coupling of the robot hand that realizes
functions of the human fingers at higher level with humanoid
having sue and weight comparable to those of human being
has not been reported yet. This is attributable primarily to that
if mobility performances comparable to human being are
introduced to design target of the human type robot hand, and
motors and reduction gears available at present are used, the
robot hand itself tends to become larger and heavier, and it is
hardly possible for the robot am that is designed to be slender
and light-weight to hold the hand at its tip. In the case the
hand should solely be made small and light, one option is to
locate the power source outside the hand and to convey its
power to fingertip via a link or a wire[S]. However, this
option does not meet with small-sued and light-weight
requirements as a whole system since a large power
transmission mechanism is necessary.
Accordingly, in this study, aiming at realization of the
robot hand that is capable of conveying feelings and
sensitivities by finger movement, a small-sized and
tight-weipht robot hand for realization of humanoid was
developed according to the policy that required minimum
motor functions be extracted and provided. Basic
characteristics of movements were investigated by
experiments, and feedforward joint control with
comparatively high accuracy based on time-series signal of a
joint with arbitrary shape was developed.
Table 1 Required speciiications
1. To be equipped with shape and motor fUnctions similar to
those of humans.
2. Mass of the COnStNCtiOU should be less than 500g and
length from fingertip to wrist root should be less than 185
m.
3. To be capable of holding the body and presenting gestures
by signal language. More precisely, flexion functions of each
finger, opposing function to face the thumb against other
fingers, and opening/closing (abduction) of four lingers other
than the thumb should be available.
Further, movable range of each finger should be sufficient.
For example, clasping of five fingers should be possible and a
ring should be formed by the thumb and each of other four
fingers.
4. There should be e sufficient space at fingertip and palm
inside for embedding a force sensor or control circuit.
5. m e r satisfying above requirements, the motor with
maximum possible size and the reduction gear with sturdy
construction should be capable of being incorporated.
Aq
 2. COMPOSITION OF ROBOT BAND one-degree of freedom is given to linking of MP and P.
Although human CM is of saddle joint with complicated
2.1 Required Specifications shape, this type is reproduced by series arrangement of two
Table 1 shows required specifications of this system. revolving joints Since substitution of this joint by a small
Basic specifications targeted here include shapes and motor mechanism is difficult.
functions nearly identical with those of human fingers, Based on discussions mentioned above, this system is
construction and mass nearly identical with those of adult designed to have degrees of freedom of eight.
hands, and size corresponding to smallish hands. The
constluction and mass referred to here include mechanical 2.3 Flexion Mechanism of Fingers
elements for composition of the basic mechanism such as One of the ,outstanding problems in developing finger
motor with encoder and reduction gear and do not include mechanism is how to design mechanism of M P joint with
electric instrumentation system such as motor control reasonable manner in four fingers except for the thumb where
amplifier, additive sensors, and connection cable for two rotating axes are crossed. One motor and one encoder
connection with outside. Since a space for mechanism for are mounted to the finger mechanism which means that a total
driving of rotational motion is required around the wrist joint, of six wires should be passed through this joint; at least two
a length from fingertip to finger root is set to less than 185 for the motor and four for the encoder. In order that wires
nun from which said space is already deducted. may not be stretched excessively due to a large rotation of the
joint, it is ideal that route of wires passes through the
2.2 Arrangement of Active Joints intersection of two axes. Therefore, the reduction gear is not
A motor with encoder and reduction gear occupies placed in the root joint and space for wirings is provided
mechanism space of the robot hand with most around the intersection of two axes. It is designed in such that
non-compromising manner. In order to attain small-sized and rotational power for two axes is given externally via wires and
tight-weight features of the mechanism substantially, these link mechanism.
equipment should be reduced as much as possible. The
following description shows arrangement of required
minimum active joints which satisfy the third required A- i
specification.
Four fingers except for the thumb have three joints I
referred to as MP joint, PIP joint, and DIP joint. MP has
two-degrees of freedom for bending and stretching, and
abduction functions of the finger while PIP and D P have
one-degree of freedom respectively for bending and stretching
of the finger. Since human P P and DIP move together in
many cases, majority of robot hands are designed in that these
two joints are linked by one motor[3]. In this system, this
concept is further developed to that at bending and stretching,
-
all three joints - MP, PIP and DIP are moved together as n
being interlocked. Although this design has such a i%
disadvantage that direction of fingertip force can not be m
changed when grasping an article, it is considered that there is .n
no practical problem in capability of reproducing ordinary Fig.1 Configuration ofjoints.
grasping status and in majority of expressions by sign
language except for difficulty in grasping an article by
fingertips.
Likewise, four fingers are interlocked for MP motion
used for abduction From viewpoints that no problem is
observed in motion reproduction capability The middle finger
is fixed to the palm since this finger is not moved significantly
at abduction with regard to the palm.
The thumb has three joints each referred to from the root
as CM joint, MP joint, and P joint. M P and IP are linked in
many cases. and CM has two-degrees of freedom. In this
system, therefore, two-degrees of freedom is given,to CM and Fig.2 Mechanism of a finger joint.

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 Figure 2 shows internal construction of the index finger. rotation angle is small. Figure 5 shows this link mechanism
Other three fingers have the same construction. DC core-less looking from back of the palm and its movable range. Root of
motor with encoder (Koshin Electric model 1516R the annular finger is driven directly by the motor. In order to
mini-motor, maximum output 0.52 W) which is the largest obtain a large gear ratio with the smallest possible number of
model is built into the coax connecting two joints MP and stages of the gear train, a circular gear with maximum
PIP.The reduction gear is incorporated in PIP to drive this possible radius is fixed to the annular finger to be driven by a
joint. There are three reasons why the reduction gear is pinion as shown in Figure 6. Reduction ratio attained by this
provided here. First, its outer shape is the second largest next configuration is 1/400. The driving motor is moved to outer
to MIP and space for incorporation is made available easily. edge of the palm utilizing distance of radius of the circular
Second, powertransmission route to the driven joint becomes gear effectively. Nearly half of space in the palm can now be
the shortest which is effective for prevention of bad effects utilized as the space for electric instrumentation. Even under
such as generation ofa play or reduction in rigidity. Third, of the condition where each Iinger is bent to the maximum
three joints being linked, PIP has the largest rotating angle degree as shown in Figure 3, abduction movement can remain
which means that the transmission mechanism to the driven independent by securing a clearance between the fingertip and
joint develops speed reducing and power increasing effects the palm. Scissors gesture (paper-rock-scissors) or the like
and is advantageous for powerful and stable driving. can be reproduced.
The reduction gear is designed to be of crown gear plus
three-stage planet gear mechanism. As for optimum type of
motor incorporation, motor shatl is arranged parallel with axis
of the Iinger and therefore, motor rotating axis is orthogonal
to the joint axis. In general, with gear mechanism for axes
orthogonal each other, rigidity is low and a play is generated
easily. Therefore, orthogonal power is taken out u s i crown
gear from the first stage looking from the motor so that bad
effects may appear least in the joint output. Reduction gear
ratio used in this system is U350 and the maximum joint
torque is 5.5 kgf-cm.
Wue-pulley mechanism is adopted for the power
transmission mechanism, and shape of the pulley is carved at
the side ofthe finger. Since this mechanism is arranged thinly
on the side of the finger, it is possible to use sizable space of
mechanism interior from PIP to tip freely for incorporation of
sensors and electric instrument parts. Although identical
transmission mechanism can be constructed by link Fig.3 Maximum bending.
mechanism it tends to become larger due to restrictions on
mechanism arrangement to facilitate smooth transmission of
rotational angle of approximately 90 degrees. Therefore, this
transmission mechanism was not adopted. Ratio of
transmission of the wire-pulley mechanism is 7/10 for from
PIP to MP and 5/7 for from PIP to DIP.
Figure 3 shows maximum bending condition. It is
noticed from this that sufficient movable range is secured.
Two active joints with this reduction gear are arranged in
compact fashion at the root of the thumb. This configuration
resulted in a sufficient movable range where a ring can be
formed by the thumb and the fourth finger as shown in Figure
4. While the motor is idle tuning, it is possible to cause a
light passive movement without causing a play by giving a
force ofseveral tens g f t o the fingertip.

1.4 Abduction-Adduction Mechanism

For linking mechanism for the index finger, annular
finger and fourth finger, link mechanism is adopted since their Fig.4 Contact in thumb and pinky

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 3. MOTIONCHARACTERISTICS
3.1 Positioning control
Based on inclition of flexion parameter of each joint aij
and y-axis intercept bij obtained by approximation by linear
equation, we attempted control experiments using the
following equation from the initial state where all joints are
stretched.
V(t)i = sgno). ( 0 ’d(t) - b ij)/ a ij (1)
where V(t)i means input voltage to each joint at timet, sgn(j)
means binary function that is +1 at bending and -1 at
stretching, 0 ’d(t) means target angular velocity at time t, i
means joint number, j means bendindstretching condition. It
is noticed from this that control of the velocity based on
Equation (1) is possible within the range where linearity is
maintained. In the meantime, when joint movement is actually
controlled according to Equation (I), and if command angular
velocity is too high, inertia is generated resulting in
overshooting. The- control is added to deduct a certain ratio
from the L s t term so that when sinusoidal command value is
followed, displacement error may become minimum at the
point where angular velocity becomes zero. The control
mechanism as expressed by the following equation is finally
adopted.
trigonometric function is used. Therefore, the method adopted
is such that from initial state of the hand joint till initial value
of changes in angle required is interpolated by half cycle of
sinusoidal wave. Since it is already known from results of the
experiment shown in Figure 7 that good tracking
performances are obtainable even if speed of about 1 Hz is
used for amplitude 90 degrees, initial positioning is carried
out by tracking a sinusoidal wave with half cycle of I80 ds
expressed by the following equation.
0 d( T )i =sin( 2 zfT) (3)
-
where,f= 9 0 / 1 O f i n - O i n i t ( . T = r / 1 0 0 ~ f , c= 0
50. 0 d( r )i is target angle at time r , r is the time for
sampling frequency 100 Hz and is shown as r = 0, I, 2, ...,
50.
Figure 9 shows movement characteristics for the case
where initial positioning as much as 90 degrees is necessary
when joint angle at initial state is 0 degree. Since amount of
movement required is 90 degrees, initial positioning is carried
out smoothly at high speed taking a time of 0.5 sec. This
processing can be used also for compensation for the case
where difference between the command value and joint angle
is not within the allowable range.

V(t)i = sgn(j).(ai + g( O’d(t)).a”i) (2)

where ai=(O’d(t)-bij)/aij , g(O’(t)=(cij. B 2 +

dij B . + eij ), 4 = 0 ’d(t). Figure 7 shows tracking
performances when sinusoidal angular command 0 d(t) (1 Hz
and 0.5 Hz) is exerted to the index finger in the experiments.
It is revealed from this that good tracking performances are
obtained with comparatively fast movement command as well
as slow movement command. Figure 8 shows tracking Fig.5 Linking mechanism in fingers abduction
performances of joint angle with regard to FM
modulation-like angle mmmand in which tequency is
changed continuously. It is revealed from this that positioning
accuracy is extremely g w d and it is known intuitively that
possible cause for errors shown in the lower column is a delay
of one timing.

3.2 Initial positioning

Controls discussed through previous section are of speed
controls based on feedforward. Therefore, when angle
changing command value with arbitrary shape is given, it
should be moved till initial joint angle within as much short
time as possible. It has been known by experiments through
previous section that frequency response is comparatively
satisfactory and that generation of excessively high angular
velocity and angular acceleration is unnecessary as long as Fig.6 Inside mechanism in the palm

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 4. GENERATION OF SIGN LANGUAGE
MOVEMENT
Experiments were carried out to generate finger
characters by sign language using this robot hand to be used
as examples of information transmission by finger movement.
Two concrete examples were generated. One is “numeral 2”
expressed by scissors gesture (paper-rock-scissors) and the
other is “numeral 30” expressed by a ring formed by the
thumb and fourth finger while the index finger, middle finger,
and annular finger are raised and then bent.
Figure IO shows snapshots showing generation of
numeral patterns In the case of numeral 2, the index finger
and middle finger should be stretched during abduction
passing through a clearance generated by the thumb.
Generation of “numeral 30” involves a difficulty. A ring is
formed by the thumb and fourth finger, and other three fingers
are stretched while observing abduction and then bent to a
suitable angle. As for two examples generated by this system,
movements were carried out promptly while maintaining
appropriate accuracy to allow reasonable judgment of
numerals created by sign language. As shown by the frame
number in this figure, it took a little over one sec. for numeral
2 and about 2 sec. for numeral 30. Figure 11 shows angle
changing command for each of joints used for generation of
both movements. It is noticed from this that this robot hand
generated movements according to joint change time-series
pattems.
iQM(
Time [ XO.Ols]
Fig.7 Tracking performance for sinusoidal input
93
In general, for positioning control, construction of
substantial control system is not made in many cases. This is
different from such cases where control of forces for grasping
is required. It may be said that although control system used
in this system is Simple, positioning control with
comparatively high accuracy can be accomplished quickly by
feedforward control.
5. REMOTE CONTROL W l T H DATA GLOVE
Finally, the control experiment of robotic hand using data
glove was carried out. The number of degree of fieedom in
data glove was totally 108, where each 18 sensors have 6
degrees of freedom. There was a difference in numbers of
degree of freedom, data formats, and sensor-actuator
positions between the glove and the robot. The remote
control was enabled by regressive model using the singular
value decomposition, as shown in Figure 12.
id..
error Io
IO, 100, ,sot
Fig.8 Tracking performance for frequency modulation input.
1 I1 21 3 41 51
Time [ X lOs]
Fig.9 Input curve interpolated for initial positioning.
 Fig. IO Examples of the sign language motions

3 so
-t“..bd-.de
IO0 -L*.R..-.”I

-.bd
so -In*...mld*~.rin

0
0 0 1

Time [s] Time [SI

Fig. 11 Input panems for generating the sign language gestures

Fig. I2 Remote control by data glove

6. CONCLUSION investigated. Fourth finger character movements by signal

For the purpose of realization of the robot hand that is
capable of conveying feelings and sensitivities by finger
movement, studies have been made in five steps. First, a
small-sized and light-weight robot hand was developed to be
used as the humanoid according to the concept of extracting
required minimum motor functions and mounting them to the
robot. Second, basic characteristics of movements were
checked by experiments, simple feedforward control
mechanism was designed based on speed control, and a
system capable of tracking joint time-series change command
with arbitrary shape was realized. Third, tracking
performances with regard to sinusoidal input with ditrerent
frequencies were studied for evaluation of the system thus
realized, and space- and time-related accuracy were
language were generated as examples of information
transmission by finger movements. A series of results thus
obtained indicated that this robor band is capable of
transmitting information promptly with comparatively high
accuracy through movements. Finally, the remote control was
enabled with data glove by regressive model.
REFERENCES
[I] A.Mehrabian, “Communication without words,”
Psychology Today, Vo1.2, N0.4, pp.52-53, 1968.
[Z] S.C.Jacobsen, J E W o o d , D.F.Knutti and K.B.Biggers,
“The UTAWM.1.T Dextrous Hand: Work in Progress,”
Intl. J. ofRobotics Research Vo1.3, No.4, pp.21-SO, 1984.
[3] Gifu Hand: http://www.kk-dainichi.~.jp/

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