JPH0317627B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a human-like palm mechanism that can be used as an alternative palm mechanism for various manual tasks performed by humans. Specifically, the present invention relates to a human-like palm mechanism for use as an endfactor for robots, prosthetic hands, various manipulators, and the like.

[Prior Art] Since the degrees of freedom of the human upper limb are concentrated in the palm, when actuators are placed at these degrees of freedom to operate the joints, the weight of the palm increases significantly. , does not stand up to practical use,
It will be very sturdy and large.

Therefore, the present inventors did not arrange the actuator at each degree of freedom position, but arranged it on the trunk side,
We developed a palm structure that uses a pulley wire system as the power transmission system and proposed it in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 60-207795.

However, as a substitute palm for humans, it is desirable to have as many similarities in function, appearance, etc. as possible with the palms of humans who perform a wide variety of tasks. It is necessary to minimize the influence of the degrees of freedom of the movement. That is, it is necessary to have a mechanism that can prevent other joints from bending and stretching when one joint is bent by pulling the wire.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] An object of the present invention is to create a structure that has as much functional commonality as the human palm, especially the fingers, while preventing the movements of each degree of freedom from interfering with each other as much as possible. It is an object of the present invention to provide a human-like palm mechanism having a structure that allows mutual opening and closing.

[Means for Solving the Problems] In order to achieve the above object, the human-like palm mechanism of the present invention connects a plurality of finger pieces sequentially by a connecting shaft to form a bending and extending finger. A wire pulled by an actuator provided on the trunk side is wound around a pulley provided on the proximal end of the finger, and the actuator is driven to bend and extend the joint between each finger. The proximal end member of the finger is rotatably supported by a support shaft on the substrate in the direction of opening and closing between the flexion and extension fingers, and the finger piece on the distal side is placed on the connecting axis at the joint of each flexion and extension finger. A guide is provided to pass the wire that bends and stretches each joint, and the wire that bends and stretches each joint is
The wire is led out through a narrow wire passing gap arranged parallel to the support axis on the proximal end member of the bending finger, and a wire passing gap opposite to the wire passing gap is placed on the actuator mount which is slidably mounted on the substrate. The wire passing through the wire passing gap is connected to the actuator provided on the actuator mounting base, and the base end member and the actuator mounting base are connected by a link.

[Function] The present invention provides a palm mechanism in which an actuator is placed on the trunk side and the joints are flexed and extended by wires, and each flexion and extension finger is supported with respect to a base plate so as to be rotatably driven in directions in which they open and close. This makes it possible to make the appearance and function more similar to the human upper limb, and in this case, the wires for bending and extending each joint are connected to the actuator through the wire passing gap on the proximal end member of the bending and extending fingers and the actuator mounting base. Since the base end member and the actuator mount are connected by a link, the movement of opening and closing the bending/extending fingers and the movement of bending each bending/extending finger do not interfere with each other.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail based on the drawings.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show an example of the configuration of the flexion and extension fingers in the human-like palm mechanism of the present invention,
A plurality of finger pieces 2, 3, and 4 are rotatably connected to the proximal end member 1 of the bending/extending finger in sequence by connecting shafts 5a, 5b, 6, and 7.

Each of the fingers 2, 3, 4 has pulleys 8, 9, 10 fixed to the connecting shafts 5a, 6, 7 on the proximal end thereof, and
These pulleys 8, rotating relative to a, 6, 7;
Wires 11, 12, 13, which are pulled by an actuator (described later) provided on the trunk side, are wound around the fingers 9, 10, and the joints between each finger are bent and extended by driving the actuator.

On the connecting shafts 5a, 5b, 6 of the flexion/extension finger joints, wires 12, 13 for bending/extending the finger pieces on the distal side thereof are made to pass through the rotation centers of the connecting shafts 5a, 5b, 6. Guide 14
a, 14b, and 15 are provided. The guide 15 provided on the connecting shaft 6 includes a cut groove 16 provided in approximately half of the connecting shaft 6 fixed to the finger piece 2 on the side of the tip finger piece 4, and a wire opening in the cut groove 16 in the remaining half. The insertion hole 17 is bored, and the insertion hole 1
A low friction contact pin 18 is fixed to the opening edge of the connecting shaft 6 so that the wire 13 comes into contact with the connecting shaft 6 while passing through the center of rotation thereof.

Guide 14 provided on the connecting shafts 5a, 5b
Although such a configuration can also be adopted for guides 14a and 14b,
b, 15 may have an appropriate structure such that the wire always passes through the center of rotation of the connecting shaft.

In the figure, numerals 19, . . . indicate small pulleys that guide the wires 12, 13 to the center position.

As can be seen from FIGS. 3 to 5, a plurality (four) of the flexion and extension fingers having the above-mentioned configuration are attached to the base plate 20 of the palm. It is supported by a support shaft 21 whose axes are perpendicular to those of 5a and 5b so as to be rotatably driven in the direction of opening and closing between each flexion and extension finger.

In this way, when the base end member 1 is rotatably driven around the support shaft 21, each finger piece 2,
A wire 11 is pulled by an actuator on the trunk side to pulleys 8, 9, and 10 provided on the base end side of the wires 3 and 4.
Since the wires 12 and 13 are wrapped around each other, it is necessary to prevent the wires from expanding and contracting as the proximal end member 1 rotates.

In order to solve this problem, a large number of small pulleys are provided on the proximal end member 1, and each wire 1
1, 12, 13 are guided into a narrow wire passage gap 25 between pulley rows 23, 24 arranged parallel to the support shaft 21 on the proximal end member 1 of the flexor-extensible fingers.

That is, the wire 1 for bending the finger piece 2
1 has one lead-out end wrapped around the small pulleys 31 and 33 provided on the base end member 1, and then the other end of the wire 11 The leading end is the small pulley 32, 3
4 and then led to the wire passing gap 25. Furthermore, a wire 1 for bending the finger piece 3
Both lead-out ends of 2 are wound around small pulleys 35 and 36 provided on the base end member 1, and then passed through the wire passing gap 25.
One lead-out end of the wire 13 is wound around the small pulleys 37, 38, 39, 40 and then into the wire passing gap 25, and the other lead-out end of the wire 13 is wrapped around the small pulleys 37, 38, 41. The wire is wound around the wire and led to the wire passage gap 25.

On the other hand, an actuator mounting base 45 is mounted on the substrate 20 so as to be slidable along a groove 46 in correspondence with each bending finger, and on this actuator mounting base 45, the above-mentioned Wire passage gap 5 opposite wire passage gap 25
0, and each wire passing through the wire passing gap 25 is also inserted through this wire passing gap 50,
They are wound around actuators (motors) 51, 52, and 53 provided on an actuator mounting base 45, respectively. Further, the base end member 1 and the actuator mounting base 45 are rotatably connected to each other by a link 55 so that a constant distance between them can be maintained.

Actuator (motor) provided on the board 20
57 has a wire 59 wound between the output shaft and a pulley 58 disposed on the same axis as the support shaft 21 on the base end member 1, and is used to rotate the bending and extending fingers around the support shaft 21. It is something.

The palm mechanism detailed above is a palm mechanism in which the actuator is placed on the trunk side and the joints are flexed and extended by wires, and each flexion and extension finger can be rotated relative to the board in the direction of opening and closing between them. The wires for bending and extending each joint are supported by the wire passing gaps 25 and 50 on the proximal member 1 of the bending and extending finger and the actuator mounting base 45, thereby making the appearance and function more similar to a human upper limb.
The base end member 1 and the actuator mounting base 45 are connected to the actuators 51, 52, 53 through the
Since these are connected by the link 55, the operation of opening and closing the bending/extending fingers and the movement of bending each bending/extending finger do not interfere with each other.

[Effects of the Invention] As detailed above, the human-like palm mechanism of the present invention is driven by a built-in wire drive system, and by making it possible to open and close the gap between the fingers, Since the positions and number of degrees of freedom of the parts are made similar, it is possible to make the palm part as similar as possible to the human palm part in terms of appearance and function. In this way, having the same degree of freedom arrangement and similar shape as the human hand means that when controlling the palm mechanism remotely, it can be controlled in one-to-one correspondence with the operating side. Therefore, control can be performed extremely easily.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

1 and 2 are a plan view and a side view of a main part of a bent finger according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 3 is a plan view of a main part of the palm mechanism, FIG. 4 is a side view of the same, and FIG. 4 is a sectional view taken along line A-A in FIG. 4. FIG. 1-4... Finger piece, 5a, 5b, 6, 7... Connection shaft, 8-10... Pulley, 11-13... Wire, 14, 15... Guide, 20... Board, 2
5, 50... Wire passage gap, 45... Actuator mounting base, 51, 52, 53... Actuator, 55... Link.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1 A plurality of finger pieces are sequentially connected rotatably by a connecting shaft to form a bending and extending finger, and a wire pulled by an actuator provided on the trunk side is wound around a pulley provided on the base end side of each finger piece. , in which the joint between each finger piece is bent and extended by driving the actuator, the proximal end members of the plurality of bending fingers are rotationally driven with respect to the substrate in the direction of opening and closing between the bending fingers by a support shaft. A guide is provided on the connecting axis of the joint of each flexion/extension finger, through which a wire for flexing/extending the finger on the distal side is passed. The wires are guided through a narrow wire passage gap arranged parallel to the support shaft on the end member, and a wire passage gap is provided opposite to the wire passage gap on the actuator mounting base slidably mounted on the substrate. A human-like palm mechanism characterized in that the wires passed through the passage gaps are respectively connected to actuators provided on an actuator mount, and the base end member and the actuator mount are connected by a link.