The present paper refers to the design of a robotic hand named RL1 hand. This robotic hand has 3 articulated fingers, which adapt themselves to the object that is being held. The fingers movement and auctioning are made through one direct current motor. The control is done through simple commands and can be sent from any computer, as a string of characters. One special characteristic this robotic hand has is that its mechanism, its electronic control and its 250 gr weight actuator are all embodied in the ASIBOT Robot. This arm was developed to help disable people or people with special needs. Apart from the topics described, the paper also refer to a theoretical study made to optimize the size and localization of the underactuated fingers' pulleys in order to exploit the most of the strength made by the tendon. Thanks to this study, better results would significantly improve these fingers' design

Human care and service demands need an innovative robotic solution to make easier the everyday life of elderly and disabled people in home and workplace environments. The main objective of this project is to develop a new concept of climbing robot for this type of service applications. The robot is a 5 DOF self-containing manipulator, that includes on-board all the control system. The main advantage of the robot is its light weight, about 11 kg for a 1.3m reach. The robot is totally autonomous and needs only power supply to be operated. The robot is a symmetrical arm able to move (or to climb) between different points (docking stations) of the rooms and, if it is necessary, "jump" to (or from) the environment to the wheelchair. In this way the MATS robot should become a home companion and assistance for numerous persons. This paper presents the live experimentation of the robot. Different tasks have been tested such as: eating, shaving, making-up, etc.

At the present time, the robotics hand research field is searching for those robots that could imitate the human hand, both in shape and in skill. As another option, some manipulator are developed, even though they do not imitate the human hand, they try to fulfil certain specific tasks with the biggest precision and skill. Some keys to make the robotic hands integrable in any manipulator are: built them lighter, a minimum amount of actuators and a simple sensorial system to simplify its control. The present work will describe the design of the RL1 Hand developed in the Robotic's Lab at the Carlos III University of Madrid. This robotic hand has 3 articulated fingers, which adapt themselves to the object which is being held. The fingers movement and auctioning are made through one direct current motor. The control is done through simple commands and can be sent from any computer, as a string of characters. To prove its ability the RL1 Hand was mounted in a robotic arm, ASIBOT Robot. This arm was developed to help disabled people or people with special needs. The RL1 Hand, its mechanisms, its electronic control and its actuator weight 250gr and they are embodied in the ASIBOT Robot.