Patent 8231158 was granted and assigned to President and Fellows of Harvard College on July, 2012 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A multi-fingered underactuated mechanical grasping system driven by a single actuator, yet can grasp objects spanning a wide range of size, shape, and mass. A member for moving a link relative to a base acts in parallel to a direction of compliance of a joint between the link and the base. The joint has a plurality of degrees of freedom. The number of members for moving links in the grasping system is less than the number of degrees of freedom in the grasping system.