Everyday Finger: A Robotic Finger that Meets the Needs of Everyday Interactive Manipulation

Abstract

We provide the mechanical and dynamical requirements for a robotic finger capable of performing thirty diverse everyday tasks. To match these requirements, we present a finger design based on series-elastic actuation that we call the everyday finger. Our focus is to make the fingers as compact as possible while achieving the desired performance. We evaluated everyday fingers by constructing a two-finger robotic hand that was tested on various performance parameters and tasks like picking and placing dishes in a rack, picking thin and flat objects like paper and delicate objects such as strawberries. Videos are available at the project website: https://sites.google.com/view/everydayfinger.