Combined joint-cartesian mapping for simultaneous shape and precision teleoperation of anthropomorphic robotic hands

There are many applications involving robotic hands in which teleoperation-based approaches are preferred to autonomous solutions. The main reason is that cognitive skills of human operators are desirable in some task scenarios, in order to overcome limitations of robotic hands abilities in dealing with unstructured environments and/or unpredetermined requirements. In particular, in this work we focus on the use of anthropomorphic grasping devices and, specifically, on their teleoperation based on movements of the human operator's hand (the master hand.) Indeed, the mapping of human hand configurations to an anthropomorphic robotic hand (the slave device) is still an open problem, because of the presence of dissimilar kinematics between master and slave that produce shape and/or Cartesian errors - as addressed within our study. In this work, we propose a novel algorithm that combines joint and Cartesian mappings in order to enhance the preservation of both finger shapes and fingertip positions during the teleoperation of the robotic hand. In particular, a transition between the joint and Cartesian mappings is realized on the basis of the distance between the fingertip of the master hands' thumb and the opposite fingers, in which the mapping of the thumb fingertip is specifically addressed. The result of the testing of the algorithm with a ROS-based simulator of a commercially available robotic hand is reported, showing the effectiveness of the proposed mapping.