  Dexterous robotic manipulation in unstructured environments can aid in
everyday tasks such as cleaning and caretaking. Anthropomorphic robotic hands
are highly dexterous and theoretically well-suited for working in human
domains, but their complex designs and dynamics often make them difficult to
control. By contrast, parallel-jaw grippers are easy to control and are used
extensively in industrial applications, but they lack the dexterity for various
kinds of grasps and in-hand manipulations. In this work, we present DELTAHANDS,
a synergistic dexterous hand framework with Delta robots. The DELTAHANDS are
soft, easy to reconfigure, simple to manufacture with low-cost off-the-shelf
materials, and possess high degrees of freedom that can be easily controlled.
DELTAHANDS' dexterity can be adjusted for different applications by leveraging
actuation synergies, which can further reduce the control complexity, overall
cost, and energy consumption. We characterize the Delta robots' kinematics
accuracy, force profiles, and workspace range to assist with hand design.
Finally, we evaluate the versatility of DELTAHANDS by grasping a diverse set of
objects and by using teleoperation to complete three dexterous manipulation
tasks: cloth folding, cap opening, and cable arrangement. We open-source our
hand framework at https://sites.google.com/view/deltahands/.
