The robot hand will be controlled using the Robot Operating System, a collection of software designed to simplify the design, control and programming of a robotic system.

Here, the robot will be defined in the physical space using a URDF (Unified Robot Description Format) file. Within that file each link is defined, as well as the joint.

By using ROS, the robot can be defined easily, removing a lot of setup or kinematics that would otherwise need to be performed manually.

The hand will communicate with the computer running ROS via a Teensy 2.3, which will act like the nervous system of the robot.

The Microcontroller will read the sensor data for position and pressure, passing these into ROS via USB. Force limiting will be done directly on the micro controller. This reduces latncy, allowing the system to react quickest, and aa warning will be sent to the system to tell ROS the force limit has been exceeded.

Position commands will be sent from ROS to the microcontroller for each joint. However, the microcontroller will handle the closed loop control of the hand to reduce real-time work done within the ROS environment