An approach for the teleoperator control of the Stanford/JPL Dexterous Hand

Developing a telerobot control system for a dexterous hand requires the integration of two very complex systems. The paper presents an approach for controlling the Stanford/JPL Dexterous Hand through a communications network, using an EXOS Dexterous Hand Master. The two major problems to be solved were: mapping of the output of the Hand Master into the corresponding input for the Dexterous Hand Controller, and delivery of the output of the Hand Master to the input of the Dexterous Hand Controller through a communications network in a timely manner. The approach consists of the following steps: division of the system into subsystems, determining the characteristics of individual subsystems, development of suitable mapping algorithms, development of an ancillary graphics subsystem to facilitate the integration of subsystems, and integrating the subsystems using a step by step approach. This approach resulted in process in which the analog signals from the Dexterous Hand Master were conditioned and then converted to digital integers. The integers were mapped into integers representing half degrees. The half degree integers were transmitted to Stanford/JPL Dexterous Hand Controller in data packets via an Ethernet 802.3 data link. The destination node of the data link extracted the half degree integers and input them to another subsystem which mapped them into Dexterous Hand Controller commands. These commands were used to control the Dexterous Hand. The process was implemented in the laboratory and used to successfully control a Stanford/JPL Dexterous Hand by an EXOS Dexterous Hand Master through an Ethernet data link.