3D Printed Biomimetic Mechatronic Hand: Control Glove Explained

A fairly in-depth analysis of the design and construction of my bionic hand control glove. I'll be uploading another video soon about the bionic hand!
Contact: [e-mail]
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As my 3rd year project for the University of Hull, I am designing and building a fully 3D-printed and arduino controlled bionic hand. As a "Biomimetic" (closely imitates real-life) mechatronic hand, it has 23 degrees of freedom and uses a physical controller in order to replicate the high degree of precision in a real human hand.

[@dirmech]

If you will place it on kick starter as vr glove, I would like to get one pair!

[@WillCogley]

Thanks, I think its a while off that stage yet but I'd love try it out in VR

[@MHP3Gamer]

@@WillCogley For that it would be nice if there would be enough room for servos in the glove so you cant close your hand in further if you hold something in VR

[@KuraIthys]

@@MHP3Gamer You don't really want servos as such for that. Mostly you want a braking mechanism. That's for safety reasons. - if it can actually apply force to your hand there's high risk of injury. If it can just resist your movement, that's different. But yeah, this would be pretty interesting for VR, since the usage is the same - you're controlling another hand remotely. The difference being that in VR, that hand is simulated, rather than a robotic hand. Though on a more basic level I wonder why no VR rig yet contains wrist tracking bracelets? If you can track hands (which you already sort of can with existing VR controllers), and wrists independently (position and rotation along one axis), you can use inverse kinematics to determine arm position quite accurately, which at the moment is nearly impossible to do reliably. (Of course, for body tracking really you'd want wrist, shoulder, chest, hip and ankle tracking at a minimum. You can cut corners by not tracking shoulders, since the chest and wrist tracking could infer other elements, and you could do partial tracking by ignoring all lower body tracking - but why has nobody tried yet? It doesn't seem overly complex, unlike a hand such as this one...)

[@MHP3Gamer]

@@KuraIthys Yeah it's true that could cause injurys But a form of habtic Feedback for VR would be great One company is Tracking the hole Body

[@ninjasploit390]

@@WillCogley Just please dont put it at an awfully high price like the current ones; this does look amazing tho

[@HOPPIRI]

I've been diving into engineering science for the past 4 days, it's amazing how much you can learn on the internet.

[@anran6425]

The data glove looks really amazing.Here's some suggestions: 1.Reduce the number of the angle sensors on the glove.When you don't actually grasp an object,PIP and DIP will always flex simultaneously.It's not necessary to put sensor on DIP. 2.Put resin or hot glue on the solder joint.This can improve the strength of the solder joint. 3.Tied all the wires to your arm.This can reduce the force applied on the solder joint.

[@WillCogley]

Thanks for the advice, I did use some epoxy around the solder joints, but number 3 is definitely something I should have done. Interesting about number 1 though, I did think about this for a while but I am able to flex at PIP without bending DIP, not sure if its actually useful for anything though.

[@jeremypatrickdahan]

I would also recommend hot glue for the solder joints. You could also add a small stress relief loop. This way just make one turn of the wire and put the hot glue on the loop. For the circuit board, I would strongly recommend making a real PCB. More reliable, cheap and fast. And little soldering ! Finally, use a Teensy ! Cheaper, faster, better documented, just plain better than Arduino while still being compatible.

[@jeremypatrickdahan]

And for linearising the potentiometer output vs the actual movement, you could make a look up table of values using your 3D model and hard code it in the MCU.

[@jeremypatrickdahan]

And one last thing for your cables : you could use telephone coil like wires. Make them run along the whole finger

[@vonries]

@@WillCogleyI'm sorry to sound so stupid, but I love your project and have been following a little of your progress for a long time. What is PIP and DIP? I think of DIP as dual in line package for through hole chips.

[@Mercurium]

It looks amazing!! I can't wait to see it finshed and working

[@KS-yg9jr]

Inspirational work, man. Really love the design language and the integrated functionality. Most similar design this cool aren't very functional, or just seem like extremely fragile when a closer look is taken. Very cool. Subbed and tracking.

[@PhG1961]

Waw, this is amazing ! A really awesome video and project. Congratulations !

[@dylankazhaw520]

Nice job bro keep up the good work I hope that you finish this and that all of those in need will get this

[@kevintuncer]

Great project! I had worked on similar projects but no time to continue them. Instead, seeing your well advanced work was really satisfying.

[@Miguel-zt6lr]

Man, you are a genius. Hope your channel continues to grow!

[@vasilecampeanu6636]

This is so beautiful. I will definitely try to build this in the future. Thank you for your inspiration.

[@MuratTAMCI]

Awesome bionic hand control project! i love it

[@skaterlook]

waw, 11oct 2018? how is this not popular? this is some new age/futuristic/remote control/work from home/shop/virtual reality/ stuff,right here. Dude this is so accessible tech, u unleashed the knowledge !

[@rakshithnarun]

Very good project you have designed. Nice presentation and explanation You have put in a lot of effort into this project Hope you achieve your goal

[@azimalif266]

Awesome design.😀

[@gabrielgraf2521]

Very very very good project. I also plan for a while to realise a project like this, and this is a good Inspiration. Thank You for sharing your experience

[@kenpinoy1915]

If only leading bionic hand producer would support you. Man you got the most brillant idea.

[@stephenfischer5322]

This is exceptional stuff!!

[@ben1canobe150]

Nice Job - Thanks for sharing... WOW!

[@thelionking2000cn]

great work!! keep it up, bro.

[@bcs7686]

.print the tracks for the potentiometers in conductive fdm material

[@0ComedyLaughs0]

amazing, great job

[@ShaunHusain]

Very cool project for sure. Just to put an alternative out there you could use a kinect sensor or a leap motion sensor (similar technology I believe) to get the input data if the glove ends up being problematic. Great thing about this is it doesn't suffer from occlusion issues the other sensors I mentioned would, but I think a couple of leap motion sensors at 45 degrees pointed up at your hand could get both sides.

[@nickgenericusername]

Coming here from a VR controller binge watching marathon... I just love the mini arms straddling each finger joint it's such a sleek design! Ever got anywhere with introducing this into a vr system? I think a robust ratchet mechanism on the back of the tiny arms with a braking mechanism wouldn't take as much space and keep your awesome design

[@txlec99]

WOW, this video definitely need MORE VIEWS!!!

[@EternalKernel]

Wow. You are an impressive individual.

[@fuzzydragoncosplay955]

This is really impressive, and looks to work fairly well. You mentioned that you considered using flex sensors but that cost was too high for them to be practical for your stage of development. Did you see any of the info on diy flex sensors during your research? If you take conductive ink you can draw out a flex sensor on some thin flexible plastic, like what’s used for cheap folders in schools, and make a decent sensor. I’ve used one to control a servo and it moved pretty smoothly. If you can’t get conductive ink, you can make a quite reliable one out of acrylic paint, vinegar, and graphite powder. It might be something to consider if you decide to make a more simplified control glove.

[@THarSul]

You could probably do something similar to the main arm for the control surfaces, with sheathed cables actuating a series of potentiometers mounted securely to a plate on the forearm, instead of having delicate electronics waving around in midair.

[@gusfn]

Super cool!

[@lineuve]

Best work!

[@theGermanPrintingNerd]

Absolute Cool

[@Bocha666]

wooow amazing job man

[@goochygoochoutdoors.1913]

Outstanding

[@zacharygorman3153]

The applications for the control glove in VR can be tremendous, especially if haptic feedback was added. Imagine how trippy it would feel to pick up a virtual rock and feel its shape and size.

[@Envinite]

We just wanna grab some virtual anime tiddies tho

[@skaterlook]

this is awesome! cudos, dude !

[@hugoelec]

for fingers tracking I think you only need to track finger tips correctly for interactive app. other movement can be fill with IK function.

[@etecetera7327]

I want to be a great mechatronic like you one day this is a amazing pal

[@Shakapam]

I really love what you made with this project ! Have you tried to use a flex sensor on the glove instead of the angle sensor ? It coud save a lot of place, but I'm not sure it can be accurate enought for this kind of needs.

[@blueshell292]

I'm in 11th grade right now and just starting out with animatronic work, but I have the feeling that this channel is going to help me a great deal.

[@italogarcia1597]

It s a beautiful project

[@supersonicdark1196]

you can also try and use leapmotion alongside the hand glove so that way you can gain more software accuracy because leapmotion has done a really good job on building software only based hand movement, not so sure about the thumb but i bet you could use it for like way better approximations of the data received from the glove, all in all man you've smashed it with this project. absolutely loving it.

[@WillCogley]

Thanks, that's an interesting idea to use leap motion alongside the glove, I hadn't though about combining the two.

[@DiegoTomohisa]

Love this, really impressive! Though I would've thought that with the rate of progress being made in computer vision, you might not even need a physical "glove" soon?

[@dylansedits8047]

this looks so fun to code that I'm gonna cry

[@auraswolf]

this is exactly what i want to build to use my exo as i will be using extensions as to keep strength in the whole system and avoid hooks for hands of the system

[@eddieshannon6880]

I wish you had a walkthrough video making one with all the components😭 I want to make a (muscle controlled) bionic hand with 3D printed parts but I’m new to this kind of stuff

[@madsoul3d]

Amazing! I have seen in other projects for prosthetics, that they do a mapping of movements with sensors in the forearm. Do you plan to integrate something like this in the future? Thank you very much, I look forward to the progress of your research.

[@victorgalvez927]

An idea for the thumb: maybe you could track it using hall sensors and neodymium magnets in each "plastic rib" in order to map the distance and relative angle with the next rib, and use the pots with the final thumb part. Also have another idea to implement haptic feed.

[@whatever7338]

For mounting the potentiometers i would make a little pcb boards for each pot with wire-to-board connector. That should take care of the stress on the wires.

[@artbyrobot1]

taht would take up WAY too much space to fit into a joint

[@Movies.HDR.4K]

Its really good well constructed bionic hand.it will be great if it become open source.lots of people can get benifits from that..

[@stumcconnel]

You did an exceptional job on this, especially to do it in a year including having to learn Blender and Unity. As for the solder issue, do you have space for a small strain-relief bridge clamp on the side of each joint, similar to what we have in UK mains plugs? And as for the noise you were experiencing, you might be able to filter it a little bit with a smallish capacitor on each signal as it goes into the multiplexer, forming a low-pass filter.

[@WillCogley]

Thanks Stu, I definitely think it could do with a clamp on the side as you say, great idea. And thanks for the suggestion about the capacitor, I tried using an arduino program to smooth the signal but that seems like a much better solution.

[@SA-ow9yo]

Greate job!

[@LanceThumping]

I feel like it'd have been easier to use multiple cameras and a black glove with white dots to track the position of each finger section and use that for calculating joint angles and the like. However, many props to the engineering job on control glove. It'd be super useful for VR games.

[@dominikhable7183]

will you upload the files or do i have to replicate it? :D

[@mikelemon5109]

Hey cool project hope this makes it for further practical use into market. Also what is the PN of the pots you used? looks quite neat.

[@aaronlewis848]

I like the idea of combining this idea with space technologies too. Imagine a remote ion propulsion drone that could be used by astronauts to repair things like the iss, or in future expeditions on route to mars and eliminate the need for space walks. Even in a martian environment if and when we successfully get to mars. I’m not an engineer, or educated in the sciences but I can almost guarantee this would be a real problem solver where space travel is concerned. Love it.

[@vedritmathias9193]

To reduce noise, you could use twisted pair wires. You'll lose some flexibility (unless you use thinner wires) but could significantly reduce crosstalk

[@artbyrobot1]

better to paint the wires with conductive paint to create a ground shield on each one and tie the paint into ground on one end

[@brendenjohnston7946]

The latest videos are from 4 years ago. Recently we have been able to control bionics with our nueral outputs easily, so I think this design could be a very beneficial design right now.

[@timothybolton7852]

Amazing brother! Would love to work with you sometime!

[@SciHeartJourney]

I'm doing the same thing! Except that my robot hand will have actual tendons, like a real hand. The power comes from the "forearm". Great designs! I'd like to discuss licensing your work to build upon it.

[@bunchofretards2375]

Greetings from Eastern Europe, as a fellow Mechatronic I seek to find a solution for the convinient arm prosthetic. I like your design. Keep it up.

[@thiefx100]

You're a God.

[@mr.thomas6128]

nicely done though a few things to keep in mind are: 1. the more you ty down wires the less stress on the solder joints. I recommend tying down with tyraps with plenty of slack on the cable 2. for the movement of the base of the thumb and pinky, why not use a linear variable resister as that is kind of think you want to know. how much did it move of the plane of the hand. 3. you could lose the finger tip potentiomitor on all fingers except the thumb and move that at the next joint in the finger, as I don't think very many people can move the tip of the finger without the second joint moving as well. 4. learn your 3D printer so you can design better with less parts and a higher part strength.

[@jeisinga]

mazing project

[@Videoswithsoarin]

if you are using solid core wire you should switch to stranded wire for less tensile force on the solder joints

[@w5im597]

so amazing project , the way it look , the way you design it , awesome . can you tell me what is your study field , mechatronic bachelor ? which university :)

[@Videoswithsoarin]

use small piece of PCB to solder the potentiometer to and solder the wires to that PCB so the PCB takes the stress and the plastic parts reinforce it instead of the small solder joints taking the load

[@dekutree64]

Very impressive! I'm making a control glove as well, though much more simple (for biomimetic bird wings, rather than hands). Do you have any ideas for how to measure wrist twist? I'm currently using two BNO055 absolute orientation sensors, one on the forearm and one on the back of the hand, to measure wrist twist and bend (transform hand quaternion by inverse of forearm, then convert to euler angles). It works pretty well and is sleek and durable, but these sensors are a bit iffy in terms of maintaining calibration while moving around a lot. It's also not super accurate since the back of the hand tends to wrinkle up when the wrist is bent upward, which lifts the sensor away from the skin at random angles.

[@roidroid]

But what i like most about your design is that it lends itself well to HAPTIC feedback. Since you're using a mechanism to measure the angle, you can also DRIVE that mechanism to force your fingers to move. Tho i guess you'd need to replace the cable-pulls on your thumb sensors with something hard... Or perhaps just have a spring pulling the thumb towards your other fingers (and the active motor will counter this movement).

[@amelsogorovic3075]

You can use lead solder instead of lead-free. It is a lot less brittle but it is toxic so I would recommend wearing a proper filtration mask, safety glasses, and even a hood while soldering it. You could also try sanding and prepping the mating surfaces of the potentiometer and glove to improve the overall strength of their bond if you haven't already.

[@artbyrobot1]

the stranded wires break that are near the solder joint, not the solder joint itself. heat stress and being so near to an unbending section of wire causes it to break right next to the solder joint. So changing solder type is irrelevant

[@KuraIthys]

By the way, have you considered displacing the potentiometers through the use of cables? There'd be a lot less difficulty wiring them if they didn't have to be so near to the joints, nor would they have to be quite so small, and the hand structure in general would be less bulky. I'm sure there's downsides to the concept, but it seems like it'd make the construction less complex, and mean the actual wiring doesn't need to flex so much, the pots can be larger, and so on. (it would mean most of the electronics being on the forearm) - obviously this is similar to how a hand is connected via tendons with the actual muscles being in the forearm, but it may also be viable for the sensors themselves... my first inclination for this would be to use high strength fishing line, but there may be better choices...

[@ZPdrumer]

Not a criticism, but you kept saying you'd want to fix cable management, so here are two ideas if you were to do something similar again in the future: 1. Instead of running power/gnd from the arduino to EVERY potentiometer you could have two big wires for power and ground going to the plastic ring around the wrist. Then from there you can split it off to each potentiometer. 2. look into enamel coated wire (usually used in motors) at least for the Power and ground, if not all three connections. I'm not sure how noisy that wire would be so maybe you could still use some stranded wire for the analog pin Anyway it was really impressive to watch! I stumbled upon your videos and I'm glad I did. This is a really impressive project. Even just making the glove would've been a feat on its own! Kudos to you

[@ExtemporeMuzzzz]

Dude nice glove. I got an idea for you. Free one. Attach wires to each mechanical part tighten to it there. It will reduce stress of the potentiometer. There for stronger materials on the mechanical parts will longer time spam of life of the gadget.

[@presida3927]

Great! You know my dream is make a robot hand that have flexibility. This is a great concept.

[@francoisotis2764]

Salut Will, Impressive work! What program do you use to get the sketchy 3d schematics?

[@WillCogley]

Salut! Thanks, I used Solidworks for all the CAD, if you're referring to the diagrams from 0:38 to 1:59 they are my drawings

[@AtomkeySinclair]

I love using blender to prototype things like this. Looking forward to a stable 2.8 version.

[@liamthedevastator]

Your drawings are mesmerizing. Any tips to an engineering student who still draws stick people?

[@artbyrobot1]

instead of epoxy to secure weak wire joints, I recommend using ABS filament being extruded out of a 3d pen. This is nice and sticky for most surfaces and dries very hard almost immediately and would cleave to the wires and surface you are mechanically securing the wires to. is faster than epoxy due to it instantly hardening as it cools

[@Davidsweirdness]

I haven't seen anyone comment this but that transition tho @0:01 damn that was nice

[@DannZylman]

i would use motion tracking software to controle the glove i have some experience with motion tracking

[@yakine13]

what i suggest for the wire is to put a hole for them to be maintained in place using epoxy, if you can't block the contact, then block (begining of) the wire

[@GrimmShade95]

Have you tinkered with the thumb pulleys? I recommend trying springs instead of the wire, more resistance should be a more sensitive reading... (Hypothetically... I'm new at this though...) LoL

[@matteomaravita4060]

Hi, fantastic project! Is it an open platform and if yet have you published on thingiverse or something else?

[@RENO_K]

I think he's waiting for it to become 100% working

[@TheReaper1005]

It would be interesting to see if you can use something like a motion capture glove, similar to the costumes used in movie production to create CGI with quite natural motion. It's probable you lose some characteristics, like a bit of accuracy and definitely zero pressure/force feedback, but it's possible you gain a few extra degrees of freedom. I'm no expert by any means, it's just an idea.

[@johannschepke5770]

i dont know which CAD prgramm you use but maybe you could write a small skript to take the movment of the glove an feed them into a Rig of a human hand

[@nexgen6305]

You can use pneumatic with lineal actuator with electrónic valeves so don't need servos

[@familygreene5634]

at ~17:40- the end.. is it just me or were you using a right hand glove to control a left hand model?

[@ignaciobetancour1513]

how long did you take to make this??? This is great, you have a Fan here :3

[@MrJefferson105]

What program did you use to do the renders ? I am fascinated by them.

[@batrox9219]

10:09 do you remember what kinds of torsional springs you used/ where you got them from?

[@josephlorenz6703]

Would creating a female electrical socket for the potentiometer work? I envision something that you could plug the potentiometer into before you attach to the joint. Just to change the orientation of the contacts so movement would cause less stress on the eventual soldering joints

[@TheRuneHD]

how did you get the right dimensions for the model to fit your hand ? I have problems modeling a bionic hand that has the correct proportional dimensions and curves that would fit

[@conorsvfx]

Love to see people using blender!!

[@williamlong4262]

what do you use to fix the positions of the 3D parts on the gloves? I am curently working on a similar objects and have no idea how to stable the exo on the glove

[@stoinercraft6389]

can you use it to capture hand movements and then use it as animation in blender or game engines?

[@ericroberts8395]

i would like to know what program did you use to design in 3D

[@Joshoowah]

Dude, you need some relief points for those wires; a peg or something to wind a bit of wire around--or to just secure it in place, so you can have extra slack--before the solder points, assuming there's enough flexibility in the wires and enough space to do so.

[@lucasvisser3864]

this glove could be the future of vr

[@presida3927]

Yes and it not just VR (future).

[@ray-charc3131]

Is it possible to make less than 10 types of set of gloves and hands to suit most variety sizes of human hands including different ages persons.

[@kyojin_9526]

17:24 hand of a true gamer

[@arklanbk]

is this open source? id love to print that hand it looks amazing

[@TheYozka]

yup! All need github projects!

[@Dragongod5890]

@@TheYozka what is the project called?

[@r603burakkusuta2]

@@TheYozka What is the project called? 10 months and no answer

[@the_hanged_clown]

this is fascinating and I'm glad someone is working on this. also you sound like salad fingers.