Jekyll2024-09-02T19:11:29+00:00https://www.dexhand.org/feed.xmlDexHand - An Open Source Dexterous Humanoid Robot HandThe DexHand is an Open Source Dexterous Humanoid Robot Hand. It is intended to be a low-cost R&D platform for exploring grasping and manipulation for robots intending to use humanoid hands as their interface to the world. Initial Release of ROS 2 Support for DexHand2023-10-01T14:00:00+00:002023-10-01T14:00:00+00:00https://www.dexhand.org/software/firmware/ros2/update/2023/10/01/ros-2-package-release

We are extremely excited to announce the initial release of ROS 2 support for the DexHand!

Our initial release contains a number of packages to suport use of the DexHand with ROS 2:

  • dexhand_description: URDF files, and RVIZ2 launch files for viewing the DexHand URDF in RVIZ2.

  • dexhand_gesture_controller: High level animation interface, gesture controller, simulation driver, and hardware driver for high level control of a DexHand. This package lets you drive either simulated or hardware DexHand’s into poses with an easy high level interface and is a good study on how to pose the hand or as a foundation for other types of controls (such as our LLM controller below).

  • dexhand_usb_serial: Provides serial communication via USB between ROS 2 and the Arduino-based DexHand firmware running on the hand (available in the dexhand-ble repo on GitHub). This package is used by dexhand_gesture_controller to send gestures over to the hardware device, but provides general access to the serial command structure available on the hand.

  • dexhand_llm_control: Provides a bridge between ChatGPT (GPT-4) and the DexHand Gesture Controller to enable experiments where you use the DexHand as an output device. Ask it math questions, to do hand gestures, like the peace sign, or other questions and see how GPT-4 interprets and uses the hand as an output device. Check out our demo video on YouTube.

All of these packages are combined by an easy-to-install metapackage which contains scripts for setting up a ROS 2 workspace with all of the dependencies and packages installed and ready for use.

Get started with the DexHand ROS 2 Metapackage Here

]]>Electronics Build Instructions Released to Build Wiki2023-08-27T14:00:00+00:002023-08-27T14:00:00+00:00https://www.dexhand.org/electronics/build/update/2023/08/27/electronics-build-steps

We’ve just released a BOM and How-To Guide for building up an Arduino-based controller board for the V1.0 DexHand. It is a compact design built with off-the-shelf prototyping parts from Adafruit and Arduino designed to fit into the forearm of the DexHand.

Features:

  • Off the shelf parts (Adafruit and Arduino)
  • Compact design to fit in the forearm of the DexHand
  • Based on Arduino Nano RP2040 Connect (Raspberry Pi Nano)
  • Controls all 18 servos in the DexHand with a single board
  • Designed to work with our Firmware project (Bluetooth LE and Serial connections)

Check out the Wiki Pages here

]]>BLE Firmware Released to GitHub2023-08-08T14:00:00+00:002023-08-08T14:00:00+00:00https://www.dexhand.org/firmware/update/2023/08/08/ble-firmware-releaseHand Tracker and Hand

We’ve just released a new project with Arduino Firmware and a Python Demo Application for getting started with DexHand builds.

Firmware Features:

  • Tables for configuring servo layouts and ranges
  • Simple command system for moving servos and testing the ranges of your build (super useful for adjusting tendons)
  • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) service for connecting to the hand and sending commands, or streaming DOF angles

Demo App:

  • Hand tracking using Google MediaPipe Hand Tracker
  • Computes angles of all the DOF’s in the hand and streams data across BLE over to the hand

Check out the GitHub Repo here

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