Optimal Position Fuzzy Control of an Underactuated Robotic Finger

In this paper, the optimal position control of an underactuated robotic finger is presented. Two trajectories, one for the proximal and the other for the medial phalanx, are proposed in order to emulate the finger’s flexion/extension movements. A Mandani fuzzy control is proposed due to the lack of a precise dynamical model of the system. In order to obtain the control parameters, an optimization strategy based on the membership functions is applied. Genetic algorithms (GA) are commonly used as an optimization method in diverse applications; however, in this case, the use of an autoadaptive differential evolution method is proposed in order to obtain a superior convergence behavior. Simulations of the virtual prototype are carried out using MATLAB/Simulink software to display the trajectory tracking. The results show that the maximum error between the proposed and obtained trajectories is 3.1352E − 04 rad.