Underactuation is a technical term used in robotics and control theory to describe mechanical systems that cannot be commanded to follow arbitrary trajectories in configuration space. This condition can occur for a number of reasons, the simplest of which is when the system has a lower number of actuators than degrees of freedom. In this case, the system is said to be trivially underactuated.
Underactuation simply means a system where the number of actuators is less than the number of degrees of freedom of the system as a whole. In a situation like this, in spite of more degrees of freedom the system cannot be controlled in all of them because of lack actuators. By clever designing, you can achieve a higher space of functioning for the system, however, it will always remain limited. These are used in areas where you want to achieve a complex job with minimum actuators. The mechanics of it can be used in a number of ways to get the job done.
Its simply having less active (controllable with an actuator) degrees of freedom that the total dof needed to achieve a certain task.
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