Note: This text is a work in progress. If you find any inaccuracies or material that needs to be included, please contact us.
Concept development
One way to achieve the advantages of voluntary opening and voluntary closing mechanisms in the same device is to somehow switch between the two modes. This could be done manually, but we feel a simpler method would be to have the device use part of the user’s motion for one mode and part of it for the other. The following illustrates one simple way of doing this:
- The cable is relaxed and the hook is completely closed.
- The cam pushes the hook open against the closing spring’s tension, operating exactly like a voluntary opening device.
- The cam begins to pull the hook closed with the closing spring and return spring almost balanced, operating exactly like a voluntary closing device.
Apart from the illustrated pin and slot, this method relies on two opposing springs: a closing spring which tries to pull the hook closed and a return spring which tries to pull the cable back to its neutral position. The return spring ensures that when the cable is released the device always returns to its initial state even if it has to stretch the closing spring to do it. If this is unclear, please see the videos of one of our prototypes doing this.
This mechanism has some interesting possibilities, such as shaping the slot and/or making the cable wind onto a shaped pulley to control the mechanical advantage at any given point in the cycle. However, there are some practical problems when implementing it. The main problem is one of space: the slot neccessarily takes up a lot of longitudinal room. If the hand is made to be interchangable with others on the market, it has a certain maximum length, and the parameters of its motion are fairly fixed. Specifically, it needs to provide a four inch opening using two inches of cable pull. If the cable pull is split between opening and closing, only one inch of cable pull has to produce a four inch opening. All of these constraints make the mechanism difficult to pack into the five or six inches of available length.
We are working on some alternative mechanisms which might fit into the space better. One of our ideas is to allow the user to manually switch between voluntary opening mode and voluntary closing mode, possibly in combination with a closing force adjustment like the vector prehensor. We came up with a number of mechanisms to do this, but most needed large wheels or levers to provide the correct mechanical disadvantage. Our most successful idea so far employs a combination of bevel gears and a pulley:
- Voluntary opening mode – The cable turns a pulley which drives the moving finger through the pinion on the right.
- Voluntary closing mode – The shaft slides so that the moving finger is driven by the pinion on the left.
The parts in the illustration are scaled to deliver the proper mechanical advantage and a to-scale penny is included to indicate the potential compactness of the mechanism. We have not yet determined whether gears this size will bear high enough loads to last, but the basic idea seems promising.
Other Ideas
- A voluntary closing hook that starts off moving quickly but becomes more powerful as it begins to grip, similar to the mechanism of RoboGrip Pliers, which are like self-adjusting vise-grips.
- A one-way mechanism that only allows the hook to move under the influence of the cable. This would perform a locking function and would eliminate the somewhat stretchy grip of a voluntary opening hook.
- A hook that opens symmetrically so that both jaws move equally instead of only one moving might be desirable, especially if coupled with the previous concept. This might be similar to the slot and cam concept except that both sides would have slots.
- A hydraulic control system like the ones currently used in bicycle brakes. This would open up a lot of possibilities, like variable mechanical advantage, easy locking with a check valve, and damping. Hydraulic controls are very responsive and efficient, although a bit more complex than cables.
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