23 DOF anthropomorphic robotic hand with high resolution spatio-temporal tactile sensing

General purpose robot end-effectors are fast, accurate and on occasions flexible, but inherently narrow in the tasks they perform. In endeavouring to mimic the human hand (the most dexterous end-effector), a tele-operated 5 fingered, 23 degree of freedom (DOF) dexterous anthropomorphic robotic hand has been designed, constructed and tested. This hand is biomimetically actuated by 20 braided pneumatic Muscle Actuators (pMAs). The thesis shows the structured development of this complex anthropomorphic robotics structure, a method of taking advantage of the inherent nature of the pMAs which weakens linearly as it contracts, a system of transmitting power from pMAs to the joints in the robotic hand, a novel method of demonstrating the dexterity and speed of the robotic hand and development of a micro-controller (µC) based pMA controller.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo