Innovative Design of Robot Hands for Space Activities

In the last decade a number of devices for robotic manipulation in the space environment has been proposed and even tested in space [1]-[3]. Nevertheless, these devices were equipped with simple (1-3 dof) grippers while the goal, currently pursued, is to completely substitute astronauts in the execution of hazardous or time consuming tasks. Therefore, more dexterous end-effectors have been proposed and anthropomorphic robot hands are currently under development, which closely mimic, as far as structure and functional capabilities are concerned, the human hand (e.g. the Robonaut Hand [4] and the DLR Hand II [5]). Nevertheless, the way towards a device with the same capability of the human hand and, at the same time, those characteristics of reliability and safety required by space missions, is still long. Anthropomorphic robot hands are in general characterized by a very complex structure, because the large amount of degrees of freedom, actuators, sensors and, more generally, because the very large number of different parts and components.