CRAFT Hand
600 USD
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)
CRAFT Hand is an open-source, tendon-driven dexterous hand from UIUC and UC Irvine with hybrid hard-soft compliance. Fifteen off-finger motors drive soft-jointed, rigid-linked fingers that cover all 33 human grasp types, for under $600 in parts.
Hand Score
4
Specifications and details:
| Availability | Prototype |
|---|---|
| Degrees of freedom, hands | 15 |
| Strength [kg] | 1.5 |
| Weight [kg] | 0.6 |
| Size | 200 × 95 × 40 mm |
| Number of fingers | 5 |
| Tactile/Force Sensors | No dedicated tactile sensors / Position feedback from the Dynamixel motors |
| Motor tech | 15 ROBOTIS Dynamixel servo motors mounted off the fingers, driving tendons / Rolling-contact finger joints |
| Main structural material | 3D-printed rigid links with soft joint material (hybrid hard-soft design) |
| Manufacturer | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) |
| Nationality | US |
| Website | https://illinois.edu/ |
Description
CRAFT Hand is an open-source, tendon-driven robotic hand from researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and UC Irvine. Its name reflects its key idea: a mix of hard and soft materials. The team noticed that impacts hit a hand’s joints, while its rigid segments carry most of the load. For this reason, CRAFT uses soft material at the joints and keeps the links stiff. As a result, it absorbs bumps, conforms to objects and grips more strongly than similar low-cost hands.
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Fifteen motors sit outside the fingers and pull on tendons, which keeps the fingers light and compact. In addition, special rolling joints guide each finger along a smooth, repeatable path. The hand can pick a raspberry, pour from a wine glass, wipe a table and lift a bag of chips. Moreover, it can perform all 33 standard human grasp types. The full design costs under $600 to build, and the team shares the CAD, print files, software and simulation model. Therefore, it gives researchers an affordable, robust hand for teleoperation and robot learning.
Download the Humanoid Robot Market Report here
Website: https://craft-hand.github.io/
