UCSB Hand

The Three-Fingered Dexterous Robot Hand Project at the Center for Robotic Systems in Microelectronics at UCSB (1987-1991)

The robot hand project was developed to test a novel "dexterous" hand design (shown in both pictures above to right of the picture). My duties (see dates on Resume) were to integrate the three robots you see on the table with a vision system, a SUN^TM 4/260 computer and the SUN 3/160 computer that controlled the robot hand. For the hand itself, I was responsible for developing and creating the programs that performed the force optimization calculations that then acted as inputs for the hand's force control programs. The Cartesian robots on the work table are both Panasonic PanaRobos^TM and the robot the hand is mounted on is a Suwa Seikosha (Seiko) Accusembler^TM. Unfortunately, Congress cut the funding to the CRSM at UCSB, and the center closed its doors in 1991. My advisor, who designed the hand, is now a full professor at the University of Tokyo.

The above picture shows the back of the equipment cabinet containing the motor controllers, force sensor amplifiers for the hand, and the robot controller for one of the PanaRobos. The Sun 4/260 is the two cabinets in the foreground, left. You can see the back of the Sun 3/160 behind the equipment cabinet with all of the wires coming from the A/D and D/A converters.

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Updated 7/9/2019 by Douglas Gurevitch