Dr. Ganesha Udupa (Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri), and the team won an Indian patent for “Artificial Humanoid Robotic Hand & its Manufacturing”.

This was also part of the work of Dr. Udupa’s Ph. D. student, Dr. Pramod Sreedharan (Associate Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri).

Robotic hands are needed to hold and place an object at the desired location while building prosthesis and manipulator roles. The Amrita team investigated an asymmetric bellow flexible pneumatic actuator (ABFPA) as a bending joint made of suitable rubber material in the construction of a novel underactuated multi-jointed, multi-fingered soft robot hand for a prosthetic application. The asymmetric actuator has a single internal chamber and is simple, compact and easy to manufacture. The present work has paved the way for extensive research on this innovative technique as it holds out the true potential for innumerable and very interesting applications in various areas. Currently, with a prayas grant from the Amrita Technology Business Incubator (AmritaTBI), research is being extended to control the hand with electroencephalography signals arising directly from a human-robot controller.

The innovation was also published as a paper, A novel underactuated multi-fingered soft robotic hand for prosthetic application.