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CHAPTER 2

Digital Hand: Interface Between

the Robot Hand and Human Hand

Makiko Kouchi, Mitsunori Tada
Human Informatics Research Institute, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology,
Tokyo, Japan

Contents
2.1 Introduction 11
2.2 Structure of the Human Hand and Digital Hand 12
2.2.1 Anatomy of the Human Hand 12
2.2.2 Link and Joint of the Digital Hand 15
2.2.3 Surface Mesh of a Digital Hand 16
2.3 Digital-Hand Model With Size Variations 17
2.3.1 Individual Digital-Hand Model 17
2.3.2 Representative Digital Hand Models 18
2.4 Analysis by Digital-Hand Model 20
2.4.1 Motion Analysis and Posture Synthesis 20
2.4.2 Mechanical Analysis 22
2.5 Conclusion 24
References 25

2.1 INTRODUCTION

Robot hands are intended to realize the same dexterous and versatile manip-
ulation that we humans can do. Thus, for robot-hand research, understand-
ing the anatomy and motion of the human hand is fundamental. On the
other hand, from the point of view of human-hand research, describing
the mechanisms and mechanics behind hand posture and motion helps to
understand how we realize such dexterous and versatile manipulations.
However, there is a wide gap between robotic and human informatics,
and it is difficult to interchange the diverse knowledge accumulated in each
research field directly.
We have been involved in digital-hand research for more than a decade.
The goal of this project is to simulate the mechanical interaction between

Human Inspired Dexterity in Robotic Manipulation © 2018 Elsevier Inc.
https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-813385-9.00002-9 All rights reserved. 11