DLR hand II: hard- and software architecture for information processing

In the robotic community more and more hands have been developed. These newly designed manipulators greatly outperform their ancestors in terms of available sensor signals, applicable grasping force, mechanical stability, reliability, kinematic design and more. This development extends the possible range and complexity of applications of robotic grippers also to areas outside of well structured laboratories and simple tasks. It also calls for more flexible control structures to provide a framework for implementing and executing these newly arising tasks without having to start from scratch for each new task. During the last few years we developed a control system architecture for DLR hand II that proved to be useful for a great variety of different applications. This paper presents the basic ideas behind DLR hand II's hard- and software architecture adapted to new needs in data processing.