It turns out that the most difficult challenge in this project is the controller. To fit to “a” human hand, let alone a range of human hand/arm sizes, is a very difficult exercise indeed. This is were Rapid Prototyping has paid for itself. Many different concepts have been explored for “rigging” the hand to control the robot hand/arm. The most difficult area centers around the fingers and thumb. below is an image of one of the early concepts for the control rig for the fingers and thumb.
early concept of control rig for hand (mechanism for arm not shown)